


Beware the Deadly Song that Echoes from the Sirens of the Golden Spades

by Foilfreak



Series: A Family in all but Heritage: Why the Blood of the Covenent runs thicker than the Water of the Womb [7]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Competent!Buggy, F/M, anyone who doesnt like this headcanon is a coward, badass pirate captain rouge, but for the most part thats it, but we already knew that didnt we, child buggy, child shanks, good dad Roger, helpless romantic roger, roger falls in love after getting his ass kicked, theres a bit more to it than just that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22285360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foilfreak/pseuds/Foilfreak
Summary: Across the wavy seas, stretching from the tiniest island village, to the largest and most powerful nations, there are stories told of a crew of women, sailing unrestrained and free to wherever their hearts desire. But these are not joyous tales like the ones shared and sang over the gorgeous mermaids of fish man island, for these women, although equally as beautiful some would argue, are not nearly as kind as their mermaid sisters. While very few have ever actually met the deadly crew of women who inspired the fearsome stories told, and even fewer who made it back with their lives, those who lived to tell the tale have will always warn the blissfully ignorant to heed the stories they hear in the local taverns, and to always beware the deadly song that echoes from the sirens of the Golden Spades.Alternatively titled: Rouge is a badass and Roger wants to fight her but then he gets his ass beat so he ends up falling in love with her.
Relationships: Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks & Buggy, Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks & Gol D. Roger, Buggy & Gol D. Roger, Gol D. Roger/Portgas D. Rouge
Series: A Family in all but Heritage: Why the Blood of the Covenent runs thicker than the Water of the Womb [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1356013
Comments: 78
Kudos: 91





	1. Traversing the New World

**Author's Note:**

> Arrivederci my good bitches! If this is the first time you are stumbling upon the trash heap that is my AO3 account, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Foilfreak, and I am known across the internet for writing some of the most outrageously self-indulgent works of literature that mankind has been unfortunate enough to have to read. Today’s steaming pile of self-gratifying heathenry is brought to you by the extensive AU that Dragowolf helped me create and is slowly but surely becoming consuming me from the inside out. If you were hoping I’d keep my grimy fingers away from the glorious “Pirate Captain Rouge” tag then I’m sorry, not sorry to disappoint you but that’s what this fic is and I’m very excited about it because i love this headcanon and i just really love the idea of a badass group of female pirates sailing the seas so i mashed the two together and got this! Anyways ill stop talking and let you get on with reading chapter 1 of whatever the fuck this is so I hope you all enjoy!!!

“Dad, are we there yet?”

“Shanks, I love you to the ends of the sea and back, but if you ask me that question one more time, I’m gonna box your fucking ears” Roger says sharply from his spot at the wheel of the Oro Jackson, an uncharacteristically annoyed scowl spread across his face as he navigates the ship through the deceptively calm waters of the New World, making sure to pay careful attention to his surroundings so that he could react if anything jumped out at them from the dark and endless depths of the sea. 

An increasingly annoyed Shanks huffs loudly, leaning his arm against a nearby railing with a scowl that nearly mirrored his father’s, bored out of his 9 year old mind and with nothing better to do than pester Roger over his sudden orders for them to depart for the New World. The fact that Roger had provided no real explanation for the order, other than that they were going to fight somebody, had piqued the redheads curiosity, and with Buggy busy working on whatever new contraption he had cooked up down in the workshop, Shanks had made the executive decision to badger his adopted father for hours on end until he got either a better explanation, or a sharp kick to the ass and orders to go away. He hadn’t received the latter just yet, but he didn’t seem to be any closer to getting the former than he was 2 hours ago, which Roger could tell was really starting to piss the redhead off.

In all the years that he has been sailing the oceans of the world, the New World is a part of the sea that Roger has, more or less, kept out of. Many would assume that this decision was because the raven haired man feared the dangers and near guaranteed promise of death for all those who dared enter those cursed waters, and while that might have been true for any other pirate, it couldn’t have been further from the reality for Roger’s case. The real reason why Roger had never bothered exploring much of the New World past fishman island until now, was because there wasn’t anybody there… well, maybe that wasn’t completely, there were people in the New World, but nobody he knew had bothered heading in that direction yet, and none of the pirates who were stationed in those seas sounded nearly interesting enough to warrant Roger packing up his crew and making the long trek all the way out there, at least, there hadn’t been until now.

“Golden Spade Rouge”, Captain of the Golden Spade Pirates, a fairly new pirate crew who had set up shop out in the New World about a year ago, and had been wreaking all sorts of havoc on the marines since her arrival. At first, Roger had been excited when he read the article introducing the pirate captain, wondering if someone with some guts had finally shown up, but his excitement quickly turned sour once he dove further into the article, noticing that the marines were not only calling her “the strongest pirate the seas had ever seen”, but had also given her a starting bounty of 85 million berris, completely blowing his impressive first bounty out of the water by nearly double the amount.

‘Strongest pirate the seas had ever seen? What the fuck were the marines talking about?’ Roger had wondered to himself as he stared down at the article with a mixture of shock, horror, and downright offense at how a rookie pirate with barely any experience under her belt was somehow being called the “strongest pirate” despite the fact that Roger has been around causing just as much damage, if not more, for over 20 years by this point. What the hell was he, chopped liver?

This was an outrage, an absolutely horrendous offense that Roger count not take lying down. The marines were one thing, he could take care of them later and give them a kind reminder of who was really the strongest and most dangerous pirate around. This “Golden Spade” woman, she was impressive, Roger had to give her that, but impressiveness doesn’t translate to true strength, and who better to teach her that lesson than Roger himself. There was only one strongest pirate on these water, or any other waters in this godforsaken world, and dammit that pirate was him, and him alone.

So there you have it, that’s the reason why, on one seemingly normal and unassuming morning, Roger burst into the mess hall and announced that they would be heading for the New World the next day, and that preparations for their departure would begin immediately after breakfast, before exiting the room without another word. Several members of the crew had attempted to dissuade Roger from moving them into the New World, not wanting to leave the good gig they had set up in the Grand Line for uncharted waters that made the Grand Line seem like paradise in comparison, but Roger didn’t budge, and so now, like it or not, here they were, sailing into enemy waters without a single clue as to what they were about to encounter.

It’s been nearly 2 full weeks since they entered the New World, and while he could tell that most of the crew is beginning to get really sick and tired of Roger’s obsessive desire to fight this “Golden Shovel” or whatever the fuck the Navy called her, he knows that the inevitable fight that will ensue once they reach their destination will be enough to help them blow off some steam and calm their worries. For now though, Roger just has to make sure that he treads carefully as he steers them toward their destination, fully aware of the fact that he had very little knowledge or experience in these seas, and was about to start a fight on his enemy’s front porch. The dangers weren’t enough to even make him consider turning back, but he supposes challenging “Golden Spade” would be rather impossible if he ended up running them aground or into a whirlpool because he was being reckless. Roger might be horribly reckless with his own life, but it would be a cold day in hell before he put the lives of his crew, his family, in unnecessary danger just because he was being an idiot. He put them through enough “necessary” danger on a day to day basis as it was.

“Hey dad” Shanks calls, causing Roger to rolls his eyes, grinding his teeth slightly in annoyance as the last of his patience with his son begins to fray.

“Shanks, I already warned you **several** times what would happen if you asked me that question again, and boy I swear to god I’m gonna-”

“No, not that” Shanks said harshly, cutting Roger off before pointing out somewhere into the distance. “Look out onto the horizon, I see something.”

Roger turns his attention out in the direction that Shanks is pointing in, the horizon slightly obscured by the heavy fog, but not enough to completely hide the faint figure sitting out in the distance.

“Is it a ship?” Shanks asks, leaning over the rail to try and get a better look, though it doesn’t do him much good.

Roger shakes his head, a grin slowly spreading across his face. “No, it’s too big to be a ship, and based on the direction the log pose is pointing, I’d say we’ve found ourselves an island.”

  
A look of excitement and glee spreads across Shanks’ face as he jumps off the railing and sprints down the flight of stairs leading onto the main deck, before throwing the door to below deck open and screaming “ **LAND HOOOOOO** ” at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing down into the depths of the Oro Jackson, alerting the rest of the crew that they’d finally arrived at the home base of the Golden Spade Pirates.


	2. Something’s Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. Enjoy!

The island of Kenaji was a moderately sized, but relatively unassuming landmass in the New World, with only one small village located along the southern coast. According to some informants Roger had spoken to after first arriving in the New World, Kenaji had previously been a lawless island, due to not being associated with the World Government, and thus had been under near constant siege by pirates and criminals of all sorts before the Golden Spade Pirates arrived and made it their base of operations. Since then, Kenaji has grown and flourished greatly under the protection of the infamous crew, but to be perfectly honest, Roger couldn’t give a flying fuck about the island or its history. Roger was only after one thing, and he wouldn’t stop until he got his hands on it.

“Seems like a pretty lackluster island for a crew of women to set up shop. You sure this is the right place?” Rayleigh asks, coming to stand behind Roger as he continues to sail them toward their destination.

“Oh ya, this is the place” Roger says excitedly, the needle on the log pose that points directly in front of them confirming his statement. “All that's left to do now is make port and we’ll finally get to introduce ourselves to ‘the strongest pirates the seas have ever seen’.”

Rayleigh rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re still upset about that stupid article the marines posted in the paper a few weeks ago. That can’t be the only reason why you dragged us all the way out here.”

Roger laughs loudly as his first mates comment. “Well, I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the reason originally-”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Rayleigh mutters under his breath, earning him glare from his captain.

“Ah shut up, I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“Maybe you should start.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. Anyways as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, that was the original reason why I wanted to come out here, but now I’m just looking forward to a good fight. As annoying as the article was to read, it did make me wonder how powerful this Golden Spade and her crew are. Who knows, maybe they’ll even give us a run for our money?” Roger says with a shrug of his shoulders.

“We’ll see about that” Rayleigh replies, his tone even but the small smile spread across his lips betraying his own excitement regarding the impending fight they were about to instigate.

A flash of blue dashing up the main mast, visible just out the corner of his eye, catches Roger’s attention, and he looks up just in time to see Buggy hanging onto the side of the flagpole by only his legs, a pair of binoculars already in his hands as he tries to get a better view of the rapidly approaching island.

“See anything from up there, Bug?” Roger calls up to his youngest son, trying his best to focus on not crashing the ship into an unsuspecting rock or sandbar, while also keeping a close eye on the boy as he dangled precariously from the flagpole, seemingly unaware, or at the very least unconcerned, but the hundred foot fall between him and the hard wood of the deck. A moment of tense silence passes as Buggy adjusts the distance on the binoculars and begins scanning the parts of the island he can make out from their current distance. A crowd of Roger pirates begins to form underneath where Buggy is hanging from, half out of curiosity regarding what the boy could see, half to act as a safety net in case he did actually fall. 

“There are too many hills blocking the way for me to be able to tell how far the village extends” Buggy begins, leaning out as far to either side as he can to improve his range of vision, “but as far as I can tell I can see most of it from here, and it looks like a pretty standard village with what looks like a couple of canons set up along the western cliffs.”

“What about lookouts? Do they know we’re coming or do we still have the element of surprise?” Rayleigh calls up, prompting Buggy to return to surveying the island for a moment before responding.

“It looks like… there aren’t any?” The blue haired boy says, his tone laced with confused surprise as he gives the island another once over. “Ya, I’m right, there isn't a single lookout in any of the guard towers or even along the beach.”

“No lookouts?” Roger questions aloud, casting a confused glance at Rayleigh, who meets him with a similarly confounded expression. Hushed murmurs begin to spread throughout the rest of the crew, all of them wondering the same thing as their captain as he steers them toward port.

“How about people?” Roger calls up. “See any civilians in the village?”

Buggy obediently returns to his binoculars and does one final scan of the island, looking around the visible parts for any people, or at the very least signs that people were there at one point. 

“I don’t see anybody” Buggy replies. “In fact it looks completely deserted.”

“No, that can’t be right” Roger says, mostly to himself, as he looks down at the eternal pose he had been given, a feeling of uncertainty and confusion beginning to settle in his chest.

“Think we’ve been duped?” Rayleigh asks, frowning slightly.

Roger remains silent as he thinks for a moment, contemplating that very same question, but despite how the situation looks, something in the back of Roger’s head prevents him from believing that they had been tricked just yet.

“I don’t know,” Roger replies finally. “I guess it's not entirely impossible, but something doesn’t feel quite right to me.”

“What is it?” 

“I’m not sure just yet, but I want to take a closer look at the island before deciding whether or not a few heads at Fishman Island need to roll or not” Roger says simply, keeping the ship headed toward the island, a look of fierce determination etched across his face.

“Hey Dad! Am I good to come down now?” Buggy calls, still hanging onto the flagpole.

“Ya, you’re good kiddo. Why don’t you jump down and come over here, I want to talk to you for a second. You too, Shanks” Roger replies. “The rest of you get to work on raising the sails and preparing yourselves. We’ll be docking in less than 15 minutes.

A chorus of “Aye, Captain” echoes from the crew as they immediately set out to follow their orders. 

From the top of the mast, Buggy lowers his binoculars for a final time and tucks them away into a pouch on his belt. Using his arms and his legs the blue haired boy gets a decent grip on the flag pole before pushing himself off and allowing gravity to carry him down the hundred or so foot distance from the top of the mast, crashing rather unceremoniously into the arms of an unsuspecting Wilson, who had only just realized Buggy was falling a second before the blue haired boy landed right on top of him, sending them both toppling to the ground.

“Fer fuck’s sake, lad, a little warnin’ next time, would ya?” the cook croaks from underneath Buggy.

“Sorry Wilson” Buggy apologized sheepishly before jumping up, completely unscathed from his fall, unlike Wilson, and rushing up to where Roger and Rayleigh were standing by the helm, a cackling Shanks hot on his heels.

“Well that was certainly an impressive landing” Rayleigh says, chuckling when he notices Roger’s less than pleased expression at Buggy’s method of descending down the mast.

Roger turns his attention to Shanks and Buggy once the two boys finally skid to a halt next to them, saying, “Buggy, you do realize that when I told you to ‘hop down’, what I really meant was ‘climb down the ladder, like a normal person’, right?”

“Ya, I do” Buggy replies with a knowing smile on his face.

“Ok…” Roger pauses, “so why didn’t you do that then?”

“‘Cuz jumping is more fun” Buggy shrugs, clearly not seeing the problems that his father does.

Roger stares at Buggy, his mouth open like he wants to say something, but nothing comes out. He sighs heavily after a moment. “Dammit Buggy, you’re supposed to be the smart one around here, not the dumbass who gets himself killed by jumping off the mast.”

“You make it sound like me being smart is somehow supposed to negate the fact that I’m your son.”

“That’s because it is” Roger grits through his teeth.

“He does have a point though” Rayleigh comments with a smirk, “‘like father, like sons’ as the saying goes.”

“YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!” Roger yells at Rayleigh, who merely shrugs nonchalantly, before turning to glare at both his sons as they bust out laughing at Roger’s reaction.

“Fucking ingrates, the lot of you” Roger mutters under his breath.

“We love you too, Dad” Shanks says with a beaming smile on his face.

“And just think, even if we do get ourselves killed, you can just toss our bodies in the ocean like how you said you want us to bury you when you die” Buggy continues, an evil grin spreading across his face as he sees Roger’s eyes widen and his mouth drop open in utter shock and horror in response to his comment.

“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE BEFORE ME, YOU LITTLE SHITS!”

This reaction is apparently exactly what Buggy was looking for, since Roger’s initial statement alone is enough to send both Shanks and Buggy to the ground, clutching their stomachs as they howl with uncontrollable laughter, like the naughty little shits that Roger had raised them to be. The rest of the crew pauses what they are doing to look up at their captain, the newer members in slight confusion, the longtime members in knowing amusement, as he goes on a long winded rant about the things he’d do to Shanks and Buggy if either of them dared to board Davy Jones’ ship before him.

“-UTTERLY DISRESPECTFUL, THE BOTH OF YOU! LOOK AT WHAT YOU’RE DOING, YOU’RE KILLING YOUR FATHER!” Roger finishes, a deep scowl on his face. “I have half a mind to beat the both of you for that one.”

“Liar, you wouldn’t lay a finger on us” Shanks accuses.

“Oh really?” Roger challenges. “You wanna bet on that?”

“Sure, go ahead” Buggy replies, crossing his arms over his chest, completely unfazed by Roger’s threat.

“Why I outta…” Roger grits, balling his fist and rolling his sleeve up, ready to deliver on his choice of punishment, but the sight of Shanks and Buggy sitting on the ground, looking up at him with their huge sparkling eyes and wide knowing smiles, their faces far too innocent for the amount of mayhem and destruction they’re capable of unleashing, causes his anger to quickly dissipate, and a painful sting of guilt over even thinking of physically harming either of his sons, to spread throughout his chest. Roger drops his fist and returns the helm, an angrily defeated look etched into his face as he turns his attention back toward steering the ship, ignoring the high-five that Shanks and Buggy exchange due to having won this argument.

“You’re both grounded and on potato duty for a month” Roger spits out, deciding to implement his usual strategy of assigning extra chores as a form of punishment, which he would totally reinforce and not forget about/flake out on half way through like he has in the past.

“K” Shanks and Buggy reply in unison, before jumping up and running off toward the other crew members so that they can explore the island as soon as the gangplank is put down.

The sound of Rayleigh chuckling causes Roger’s scowl to deepen. “Not. One. Word.” The raven haired man orders.

“What are you getting mad at me for? I've been telling you that you need to punish them properly when they misbehave for years. As far as I’m concerned, you deserve this” Rayleigh says with an amused look on his face.

“What do you mean ‘I deserve this’? I haven’t done anything wrong” Roger squawks indignantly.

“Oh please, you’ve been spoiling those boys since the day they stepped onto this ship and have never once followed through with your punishments when they misbehaved. All they have to do is look at you with those big puppy dog eyes of theirs and you fall apart at the seams. They have you wrapped around their little fingers”

“I do not,” Roger argues, “besides, hitting kids never does any good. Not only are you throwing away any chances of the kid liking or trusting you ever again, but it also results in the exact opposite of what you want it to.”

“Is that so?” Rayleigh asks, raising an eyebrow at his captain.

“Do I look anything like the ‘upstanding citizen’ that my bastard of an old man said he was gonna turn me into as he whipped a belt over my back over and over again?” Roger challenged, the shocked look that flashed across Rayleigh’s face telling him that he now had the upper hand in this debate.

“Ok, point taken, but I still think they have you wrapped around their little fingers” Rayleigh says.

Roger rolls his eyes but makes no further attempt to argue.

“Dad!” Shanks calls.

“What?” Roger snaps slightly, turning to see Shanks and Buggy standing in front of the gangplank. 

“Hurry up and get over here” Buggy demands, looking impatiently back and forth between his father and the line of men descending the ramp to head onto the island.

“Ya, come explore the village with us. If it is deserted, then there must be all sorts of cool stuff for us to take” Shanks says, bouncing excitedly and waving for Roger to come with them.

Despite his best efforts, a small smile spreads across Roger’s face as his boys beg him to join them on their little adventure. Those two might be little shits, but dammit they were his little shits, and so, leaving his place at the helm, Roger descends down to the main deck as his sons had instructed him to, stopping a moment to make sure that the anchor has been dropped correctly. 

Shanks and Buggy, quickly losing patience, run up to Roger and wrap their, comparatively, tiny hands around his fingers and begin pulling him toward the gangplank, demanding that he hurry up before the rest of the crew takes all the good loot and they die of boredom.

“Alright alright, I’m coming, just give me a second, I gotta make sure Oro doesn’t float away on us ‘cuz these idiots didn’t anchor her properly” Roger says, only to be met with a pair of exasperated groans.

“Wrapped. Around. Their little. Fingers” Rayleigh enunciates proudly as he passes behind his captain and walks down the gangplank, expertly avoiding the kick Roger attempted to land on him.

“Ah shut up, you’re just jealous ‘cuz they’ll never love you as much as they love me” Roger grits, finally allowing Shanks and Buggy to pull him away from the anchor and down the gangplank, following Rayleigh and the rest of the crew as they begin their exploration of the island of Kenaji, and hopefully solve the mystery of what happened on this island to make it seem more like a ghost town than the main base of a deadly pirate crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, it’s me, I’m back. Sorry for being gone so long, ive kind of been suffering from a severe creator’s block the past few months which has rendered me incapable of doing much of anything in terms of being creative, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so hopefully that means I can get out of this slump, and get back to writing like I was before. So a couple things I should probably mention, first, this story has gone through a couple changes as Ive thought about how I want to approach it, so the plot is pretty different now compared to what I had in mind when I posted chapter 1, but i think the idea I have now is going to work a lot better and be a lot more satisfying than the original one I had in mind so hopefully you all like it! Rouge will be coming I promise she will get the badass introduction that I promised all of you, but her introduction is going to have to come a little later in the story that I initially thought but our badass queen is coming soon I PROMISE!!! Second, im sure some of you are sick of me shoving my Good Dad Roger headcanon down your throats in every fic I write but i don’t really care because this is my AU therefor whatever I say goes and ROGER IS A GOOD DAD WHO LOVES SHANKS AND BUGGY VERY MUCH AND THEY ARE HIS SONS AND HE IS THERE DAD AND YOU WILL RIP THIS IDEA FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS SO GET USED TO IT BECAUSE ITS NOT GOING ANYWHERE ANYTIME SOON! Third and final, going off the idea of Shanks and Buggy being rogers sons, I haven’t had the chance to write them as the tiny gremlin shits that I know that they are (you aren’t raised by Gol D. Roger only to NOT become the biggest little shit to every sail the seas that’s not how this works) so i decided to add a little excerpt of Shanks and Buggy tormenting Roger with their antics and I for one find it absolutely hilarious, so hopefully you all enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it. Anyways thank you all so much for sticking around and supporting my work, I can’t even begin to explain how much it means that people actually enjoy what I write and continue to comment and leave kudos, so thank you all again so much and I look forward to seeing you all soon for chapter 3. Love you all, Bye!!!!


	3. Ghost Town Ambush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. Enjoy!

“Man, this island fucking sucks. How the hell does it go from being a nice breezy day to suddenly being a scorching desert?”

“I hate to admit it, but I’m gonna have to agree with the exploding idiot on this one. There’s not a damn thing here, and I’m sweating my fucking balls off to boot.”

“Ya, you heard the man, he-HEY! Fuck off Kelly” Kenai growls, giving his mate a shove into a nearby ditch, laughing to himself as the gunsman topples into a puddle. Kenai shrieks in surprise when Kelly suddenly launches himself at the pyromaniac and pulls the both of them unceremoniously into the mud.

Rayleigh rolls his eyes as the two men begin wrestling on the muddy ground, goaded on by their fellow crew mates, wiping a bead of sweat form his forehead before turning to his captain. “They do have a point, Roger. We’ve been searching this village high and low for the past two hours and haven't found a single thing, living or otherwise. Even if we extended our search to outside the village, it could take us days before we find anything valuable, and the temperature’s only going to continue rising the longer we’re out here.”

“Thank you Rayleigh, I’m very much aware of that fact” Roger replies shortly, pulling his hat off and running his fingers through the sweaty mess of hair on the top of his head, frustration and confusion plainly written across his face.

“Dad, I think we’ve been duped” Shanks pipes up from underneath a nearby canopy, a tired and annoyed look etched onto his face as he and Buggy hide from the sun’s unrelenting heat underneath the few spots of shade they can find and squeeze themselves under.

“Ya” Buggy joins in, his expression eerily similar to that of his red headed friend’s “and it’s too damn hot to be out here anyways. Can we go back to Oro now?”

Roger sighs, greatly displeased with the current situation, but for some reason not yet believing that they had been tricked and led astray by the merchants they had received the eternal pose for Kenaji from. To be fair, Roger doesn't blame any of his crew for believing that they’ve simply been tricked, given that the entire island looks like it hasn’t been touched in nearly a decade and there isn't a single sign of the crew they’re looking for, but something, an itch, or perhaps a voice, in the back of Roger’s head urges the raven haired man to hold out on giving up just yet, and should he continue searching, what he is looking for will be just within reach.

Now the only thing left to do was to convince the rest of his band of lovable idiots of that as well.

“Alright boys, gather up” Roger orders, capturing the attention of his crew as they await for their orders. “I want all of you to split into 4 teams, each one led by either myself, Rayleigh, Gaban, or Crocus. We’ll split up and search the island in sections and we’ll-”

“WHAT?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Come on Captain, why you gotta do this to us?”

“Boooo, no more searching.”

“Ya, my legs are about to fall off anyways.”

“Let’s just call it quits and go-”

“SHUT IT” Roger yells, quickly losing his patience with all the whining and complaining due to the scorching heat. “What’s with all the complaining, you babies? We didn’t come all the way here just to peruse an empty village and then turn around and go home. I for one came here for a goddamn fight and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

“But Captain, we don’t even know if the Golden Spades are using this island as a base anymore. Hell we don’t even know if they ever actually used this piece of shit floating rock as a base. They could have just found the empty island, said they set up camp and then took off to find a bigger, better island, leaving chumps like us to travel all the way out here and find jack diddly squat, if they even made it here at all” Duran, one of the lookouts with bright orange hair and dark brown eyes, commented, crossing his arms over his chest to the chorus of agreement from his fellow crew mates.

“Oh come on, you’ve gotta be kidding me” Roger groans. “You’re telling me you can’t muster out another two hours before heading back to the ship?”

“Listen Roger” Rayleigh suddenly interjects “I get that you want to fight the Golden Spades, I do, and quite frankly I want to fight them too, but given what we’ve found already it doesn't seem like they’re even here much less in the fighting mood right now. I’m not saying we have to turn around and go back, but maybe it would do us some good to go back to the ship and figure out a more concrete plan before splitting up our forces and heading into unknown territory.”

“Oh for crying out loud, not you too” Roger groans, rolling his eyes. This seems to get on Rayleigh’s last nerve, as he grits his teeth and takes a step forward, putting himself at eye level with his captain.

“Alright look you overgrown self-centered toddler, you want to know the real reason why I don’t want to search the island right now? I’ll tell you why, it’s because it’s 115 motherfucking degrees outside, I’ve got sweat and sand crawling into places I’d prefer it wasn’t, and to top it all off my IDIOT of a best friend has once again lead us all into the middle of buttfuck nowhere in search of some crew who we have no information about, just because he felt like it. We’ve all been **very** patient with you on the journey over here and because of that I think it’s time for you to take some advice from your fellow crew and listen to the majority vote. So for the last time Roger, turn your ass around and get back to the ship because whether you like it or not, I am not going into that goddamn forest until it is at least, **at least** , 30 degrees cooler than it is right now. Do you understand me?”

A tense silence fills the area as Roger and Rayleigh glare harshly at one another, wordlessly arguing and daring the other to back down. Normally it would be Roger who walked away from the staring contest victorious, but the series of disappointments and failures, coupled with the nearly unbearable heat, seems to be working more in Rayleigh’s favor, and with a slump of his shoulders, Roger is the first to look away, and therefor, the loser of this argument.

“Alright fine. We’ll go back to the ship and wait for a couple of hours until dusk before going out and surveying the rest of the island. Happy?” Roger grumbles.

“Very” Rayleigh says with a victorious smile as he glides past his captain and begins to walk back toward Oro along with the rest of the crew.

Roger rolls his eyes and begins to follow his first mate, but stops after a few yards when he notices that neither Shanks nor Buggy are following the rest of the crew back to the ship, but instead are standing around, staring out into the forest with rapt attention.

“Shanks, Buggy, what are you standing around for, let’s go” Roger calls over to them, though his words seem to fall on deaf ears as the boys continue staring out into the distance.

Furrowing his brows in confusion, Roger walks over to his sons, beginning to hear bits and pieces of the conversation they were having the closer he gets.

“Do you think it's someone from the village?”

“I don’t know, maybe. But it doesn’t sound like a person.”

“But if it’s not a person then who’s doing it?”

“Boys” Roger calls out again, this time catching Shanks’ attention, who turns to his father with a curious, but slightly worried expression on his face, which surprises Roger.

“Dad, Buggy says he hears something coming from the forest” the red headed boy says, his head moving back and forth between the approaching Roger, and Buggy, whose gaze remains fixed on the line of trees just outside the village.

“Oh ya, and what would that be?” Roger asks, coming to a stop just behind the two boys, looking down at Buggy expectantly, but he receives no answer. 

“Bug?” Roger repeats, his brows furrowed in confusion again as he bends down and places a hand gently on the small boy’s shoulders, his confusion turning to concern when he notices Buggy tugging at the hem of his shirt, one of the things he tended to do when he was nervous or afraid.

“Come on kiddo, talk to me, what do you hear?” Roger asks one last time, finally receiving a response from the boy in question, who turns to look up at Roger with those huge green eyes of his.

“It sounds like singing” Buggy says finally, turning his gaze back to the forest. 

“Singing?” Roger repeats, turning his head to look out in the direction that Buggy was currently looking. For a few moments Roger remains silent, straining his ears to see if he can pick up on this singing that Buggy claims he hears, and it isn’t until just before he’s about to question Buggy further, that he finally hears it. Somewhere off in the distance, noticeable only if you’re looking for it, is the faintest humming sound, a low and gentle tone that echoes from the forest and grows louder the longer Roger listens. The sound would normally be comforting in its low and smooth tone, but underneath it Roger can pick up on a tense unease, the sound carrying a sense of foreboding, or perhaps a warning to those who dared venture closer to it.

“Do you hear it now?” Buggy asks, looking up at the raven haired man again.

“Ya, I do” Roger replies, looking around to see where the sound could be coming from, “but I don’t have a single goddamn idea what it could be.”

“ _...ou think they’re with them…_ ”

“Did you hear that?” Buggy asks, concern and fear etched onto his face as he and Shanks move closer to their father, clutching at his coat as they look around.

“... _hould take them out before they cause trouble…”_

“What are they saying? I can’t understand them” Shanks says. Roger whips his head around as the faint sound of speaking continues to echo softly in his head, his Observation Haki picking up on what sounds like two women, speaking softly to themselves somewhere in the distance. Could they be the missing villagers? Or are they members of the elusive Golden Spade Crew that the Rogers have been looking for?

_“...at about the kids… hey be kidnapped… take them to Captain…”_

The mention of the words ‘kids’ and ‘take’ has Roger’s blood running cold, his heart skipping nervously in his chest as he unconsciously pulls Shanks and Buggy closer to him, not even needing his Observation Haki to tell him that things were about to get bad. Forget the island, forget the Golden Spades, forget the stupid fucking fight, whatever the hell was going on here it clearly had nothing to do with them, and if voices in the distance are going to be talking about taking his boys from him (as if Roger would even let that happen in a million years) then as far as he was concerned, it was time for them to pack up their shit and get out.

_“...hink he’s seen us… cut him off at the impasse and grab the kids…”_

“Oh like hell you will” Roger says, hurriedly picking up Shanks and Buggy before turning and bolting in the opposite direction toward the ship, not even bothering to look back and see if he’s being followed.

“Dad what’s happening?” Shanks asks, holding on to Roger’s neck for dear life.

“I don’t know kiddo, but whatever it is, it’ll be easier for us to deal with once we’re back on Oro, so don’t you worry” Roger replies, hoping that he didn’t sound as panicked as he was. 

It was times like these when Roger really wished he could be as calm and cocky as he normally was. Single handedly taking on 10 battleships? Easy. Fighting off hordes or enemy pirates or marines? Not a problem. Reeling in Sea Kings for dinner? Could do it in his sleep if he wanted to. All of those situations and more were ones where Roger would barely break a sweat, bravely and fearlessly taking on anyone and anything that dared to stand in the way of his dream. It would certainly come as a great surprise to many then, that after meeting and defeating so many powerful opponents in the past, that his greatest fear in the whole wide world would be kidnappers. Yup, that’s right, kidnappers.

It was almost ludicrous how the mere thought of Shanks and Buggy being taken away from him could send Roger into a debilitating fit of anxiety, to the point where he’d spent an embarrassing amount of sleepless nights constantly checking up on the boys, just to make sure they were actually still in their beds like he logically knew they were, but could not bring his stupid overprotective Dad brain to believe. Roger was more than willing, hell even enjoyed, putting his own life at risk, but the second it seemed like Shanks and Buggy were in any sort of danger, Roger’s first instinct was to always grab the boys and get as far away as physically possible, at least until they could all regroup and come up with some sort of strategy. The boys might be capable fighters, but goddammit they were only 9 and Roger was NOT kidding when he said that neither of his boys were allowed to die before him.

“Dad, the singing’s back” Buggy pipes up after a few moments.

“Don’t worry about that sweetheart, whatever it is I’m not gonna let it hurt you” Roger assures as he continues to run, the entrance to the village now within sight.

“No, Dad you don’t understand, it’s not the same singing, and its coming from the sea this time.”

“What?” Roger asks in confusion as he skids to a halt just outside the village gates, panting slightly as he looks out in the direction that buggy is pointing where, sure enough, a similar humming sound can be heard in the distance, but instead of being a low and even hum, this sound is darker, rougher, and more dangerous than the one they heard from the forest. This was the sound of a war song.

“What the hell is going on?” Roger asks to no one in particular.

“ROGER!” 

The raven haired man in question is pulled by the sound of his voice, looking down toward the ship to see that the others had already boarded Oro, and Rayleigh was now calling out to him. Good, at least they all made it back.

“Rayleigh” Roger yells back, beginning to descend down the steep hill toward the ship, “there’s something weird going on on this island, I don’t know what it is but I don’t like it.”

“ROGER, MOVE!”

Roger raises a confused eyebrow at his first mate, unsure what the hell he’s talking about.

“What the hell are you yelling at me about? I’m moving” Roger yells back, but this doesn’t satisfy his best friend.

“ROGER GET OUT OF THE WAY! BEHIND YOU!”

Those words raise all sorts of alarms in Roger’s head, and the raven haired man whips around just in time to see one of the cannons along the village wall, manned by a tall woman with curly brown hair, pointed right at him, Buggy, and Shanks.

The sounds of Shanks and Buggy’s terrified screams are the last things Roger hears before the cannon goes off, firing the explosive projectile at him at such a speed that Roger is only barely able to jump out of the way before it goes off, launching him and the boys off the hill, Roger’s back slamming into a rock at some point, and down into the cold and murky depths of the water.

Utter chaos ensues as Roger desperately tries to pull himself up from the currents unrelenting grasp, thrashing and flailing his arms around in the hopes that he’ll be able to pull himself back up. Even when he does manage to breach the surface of the water for his first gasp of air in who knows how long, coughing and sputtering as he attempts to dislodge seawater from his lungs, Roger has little time to think as a line of cannonballs go sailing right above his head, this time being fired from an enemy pirate ship, the same one that Buggy must have heard coming from the sea when they were leaving the… oh no.

Despite the utter pandemonium that is going on around him, Roger’s entire world comes to a burning crash when he finally realizes that somethings, or rather someones, are no longer held tightly in his grasp like they had been before they’d hit the water.

Shanks and Buggy. 

Panic, fear, worry, concern, and downright terror all fill Roger’s chest, completely blocking out the incoming and outgoing cannons that fly above his head, as he desperately looks around the surface of the water for any sign of his boys.

“No no no no no No No NO NO NONONO” Roger yells, ripping his captain’s hat and coat off before diving down into the water.

All concept of time is lost on Roger as he frantically searches high and low, becoming more and more panicked with each passing second. He looks and looks and looks everywhere anywhere he possibly can until his lungs burn and he feels as though he’s about to pass out from oxygen deprivation, but he doesn't stop, Roger refuses to stop looking until he’s found his boys, until Shanks and Buggy are back and safe in his arms again, but the world has never been kind to Roger and it doesn't appear to want to start now, as two arms wrap around his middle and suddenly yank him out of the water and onto the Oro Jackson.

“NO! LET GO OF ME! THEY’RE STILL DOWN THERE! I HAVE TO FIND THEM, THEY’RE STILL DOWN THERE!” Roger snapped, kicking and screaming and begging for Rayleigh and the rest of the crew to let him back down into the water so that he can find his boys, his precious sons, they're both still down there, he has to find them, he doesn't have much time, they’re both still stuck down there and they’re going to drown if he doesn’t save them, they’re going to die and it’ll be all his fault, what kind of father lets his own sons die when he could have saved them, what kind of father would Roger be if…

“ROGER” Rayleigh yells, grabbing the raven haired man by the shoulders and all but shaking him senseless. 

Silence falls over the ship as Roger finally takes in his surroundings, seeing that not only had the enemy ship from earlier left after the Rogers had, presumably, fended them off after their opening attack, but the sun was also about to set, meaning that several hours had passed since Roger had originally been knocked off the hill and sent careening into the water. A cold sense of dread filled Roger upon realizing this, knowing full well that neither boy could last that long under water, especially Buggy, what with his Devil Fruit and all. 

“Listen. To. Me.” Rayleigh interjects, finally getting a hold of Roger’s attention. Looking up at his first mate, Roger is surprised to find that Rayleigh’s face is filled with just as much panic and worry as his own was. “Shanks and Buggy are alive.”

Roger’s eyes widen at this. “How do you know?”

“After you got knocked into the ocean, an enemy ship came out of nowhere and ambushed us, but we were able to ward them off before they got onto the island. Before they hightailed it we saw them cast a net into the water and pull Shanks onto their ship” Rayleigh explains.

“And you just let them get away with him?” Roger asks angrily.

“We tried going after them but we weren’t fast enough” Scopper interjects. “By the time we raised anchor and set out to go after them they were already too far away, there was no way we were gonna be able to catch up with them, so we turned around and came back.”

Roger sighs, wanting to say more about how they should have tried harder to get Shanks back, to do everything in their power to save him, but even Roger wasn’t dumb enough to think that his crew wouldn’t have done everything under the sun to get Shanks back, and if they didn’t think they could do it, then there wasn’t anything that could be done. 

“And Buggy?” The raven haired man asks hesitantly, fearing only the worst for the blue haired boy, knowing that his small size and lack of swimming abilities would make fighting the current and getting to safety absolutely impossible.

“We don’t know where he is, but we can catch glimpses of his Haki every so often, so we at least know he’s still alive. He must have gotten pulled into the island by a current when we weren’t looking” Rayleigh says, and much to Roger’s relief he finds that his first mate is telling the truth. Although it's a faint and flickering feeling, Roger can make out Buggy’s Haki signature somewhere on the island, confirming that at least one of his children are still alive and (somewhat) well.

Taking a shaky breath, Roger stands up, wringing his shirt out as he tries to clear his head and think of what to do next.

“Find them” he orders roughly after a long moment of silence. “I don’t care how long it takes or who we have to kill, I want both of those boys back on this ship, alive, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir” the crew says in unison, all of them looking fiercely determined as they all set out to perform their designated tasks to ready themselves for the upcoming search and rescue.

“Hey” Rayleigh says, catching Roger by the arm just as he’s about to leave for his cabin. 

Roger looks at his first mate, both of them sharing a silent moment of eye contact before Rayleigh speaks. “We will find them” he says reassuringly, giving Roger’s arm a gentle squeeze. If there was anyone on this ship who knew just how much Shanks and Buggy meant to Roger, then it was Rayleigh.

“I really hope so” Roger says in return, wanting to be more confident in the idea that he’ll have his boys back soon, but unable to fend off the anxious thoughts crowding his head.

Taking one final deep breath, Roger turns to head below deck and grab himself a change of clothes, when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, along the shore of the island. Getting a closer look Roger’s eyes widen in shock when he sees the same woman with curly brown hair who shot at him and the boys back on the island, along with another woman, a long leg by the looks of it. 

Before Roger can stop himself, his body moves on its own, completely ignoring Rayleigh’s futile attempt to stop him as he races to the side of the ship, launching himself full force in the direction of the two women fleeing along the edge of the island.

“CAMILA, LOOK OUT” the long leg screams as Roger rams himself into her, grabbing her around the neck and forcefully slamming her into the ground, fueled by an intense rage the likes of which Roger has only ever felt once before in his entire life.

“Where is he?” Roger growls, his fingers wrapping tighter around the woman’s neck, preventing her from actually responding as she chokes and gasps for air.

“Let go of her” the long leg cries, leaping forward to swing at Roger’s head, an attack he easily avoids as he reaches and grabs the other woman, smashing her face first into the ground, leaving her unconscious. 

“Now, where was I?” Roger asks, no one in particular, as he turns his attention back to the brown haired woman, ready to rip her a brand new asshole for firing a cannon at him and being the reason why not one, but both of his sons are currently MIA or captured by the enemy. The woman glares at Roger angrily, and makes futile attempts to wiggle her way out of his grasp, stopping only when Roger tightens his grip around her neck further. 

_“Camila! Ray! What’s going on out there? Do either of you copy? Hello?”_ A voice says, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

Roger’s attention is pulled from the brown haired woman he’s currently choking, in favor of the small baby transponder snail currently lying on the ground a few feet away from them. The brown haired woman’s squirming increases as Roger reaches for and picks up the baby transponder snail as the woman on the other line continues to attempt to get in contact with her Nakama. 

Although Roger has never heard, nor can he see, this woman, a voice in the back of his head tells him that this is no ordinary woman, in fact, the voice kindly informs him that this woman is exactly the person he came all the way out to the New World for in the first place.

_“Camila, are you there? Answer the phone will you, what the hell was that noise, it sounded like-”_

“Hello, Golden Spade” Roger says into the receiver of the snail, cutting off the woman’s rant with a deceptively calm and even voice.

A long moment of silence passes as Roger waits for a response, the brown haired woman continuing, and failing, to try to rip the transponder snail from Roger’s hand.

_“Hello”_ the woman replies finally, her voice calm but with a hint of concern added to it, telling Roger that he must have guessed her identity right. _“And who might I be speaking with right now?”_

Roger huffs a small laugh, casting a glance down at the brunette in his right hand. “Well, on any normal occasion I’d have a whole speech prepared to answer that question for you, though I’m sure you’d be able to guess who I am before I was even finished with it” Roger pauses for a moment “but right now you’re speaking to a father.”

_“A… a father?”_ Golden Spade asks, clearly confused, confusion that the brown haired woman clearly shares, if the astonished look on her face in response to Roger’s words says anything.

“Mmm, yes, a father of two little boys, one’s named Shanks, he’s 9, has red hair, wears a straw hat all the time, and he likes swords and stories. The other’s name is Buggy, he’s also 9, has blue hair, the biggest pair of green eyes you’ll ever see, and is probably the smartest person you’ll ever meet in your entire life” Roger says, speaking as though he were talking about something totally mundane, like the weather.

_“I… I don’t understand why you’re telling me this… what happened to the woman who’s snail you’re speaking on belongs to?”_ Golden Spade asks, her voice laced with concern the longer Roger draws out the conversation.

“Oh don’t you worry about them Golden Spade, I assure you you’re nakama are alive and well” Roger says.

_“Ok that’s great, but where are-”_

“Unfortunately the same can’t be said for my two boys, who I lost track of after your brown haired little friend here **fired a cannon at us** ” Roger growls angrily, the woman wincing as Roger tightens his grip on her again. 

_“I… you don’t… listen, i don’t mean to sound disrespectful but you don’t understand the gravity of the situation-”_

“No, **you** don’t understand the gravity of the situation” Roger seethed, caring very little for whatever honor or code would have incentivized him to be a bit more polite to the rival pirate while on her own island. “Now I don’t know what the deal with you attacking us when we hadn’t done anything wrong is about, and frankly I don’t care, but all I know is that my sons, my precious little boys who mean more to me than anything else in this entire godforsaken world, are currently missing, maybe even dead for all I know, and unless you want your nakama and the rest of this fucking piece of shit island to find themselves in the same position, you’re going to help me find them. Is. That. Clear.”

“Rouge…” the brown haired woman pipes up, her voice rough and strangled with Roger’s fingers around her throat, “don’t… d-don’t l-listen to h-him…”

“ **You shut your mouth** ” Roger barks, grabbing the woman by the head and slamming her into the ground, just like he did with the long leg.

_“CAMILA”_ Golden Spade yells as the woman goes limp on the ground at Roger’s feet. _“Ok ok, stop, you win, we’ll help look for the two boys, just please don’t hurt my crew.”_

Roger huffs, standing up and grabbing the two women by the back of their shirts, hefting them up onto his shoulder as he begins to walk back down to the shore, where the Oro Jackson was now waiting for him.

“You’re nakama will be fine so long as I get my boys back” Roger promises.

_“And I’m supposed to just believe that? Why can’t you just give them back now?”_ Golden Spade asks incredulously.

“You don’t have much of a choice in the matter I’m afraid. And I’m taking your nakama as added insurance, to give you a little incentive to look extra hard for my boy” Roger retorts. “The only one you’ll need to worry about finding is Buggy, the blue haired kid, he got swept up by the current and is somewhere on the island, though we have no idea where. The other one was taken captive by the pirate ship that ambushed the village earlier today, we’ll be pursuing them as soon as I get back to my ship. Any particular reason for that you’d like to inform me of?” Roger asks.

A moment of silence passes. _“It’s a long story”_ Golden Spade finally says.

“Hmm, well then you’ll have all the time in the world to tell it to me tomorrow morning when I call back to check in on your progress. Don’t disappoint me Golden Spade. You’re nakama’s lives are depending on it.”

_“What? Hey wait a se-”_

The voice cuts off as Roger hangs up the transponder snail before boarding the Oro Jackson. His crew all give him strange and confused looks as he hands the two bodies over to his men, who promptly take them to the brig.

“And they are?” Rayleigh asks, raising a curious eyebrow at Roger.

“Bargaining chips” Roger replies simply. “I want my boys back and I don’t care if I have to manipulate that Golden Spade woman into helping if it brings them back to me.”

Rayleigh nods his head in understanding before leaving to direct the crew to set sail.

Roger didn’t know how long it would take to get Shanks and Buggy back, but he was willing to risk anything and everything to bring his boys home. Now the only thing left to do was hope and pray that the Golden Spade Pirates did more to help, rather than hinder, the achievement of that goal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so it has been a hot, hot, hot minute since Ive posted to this story, but I am still here, and still uploading even tho ive been taking bigger breaks than i normally do. Ive been struggling a lot with writers block and not feeling motivated to write for a variety of different reasons, but i managed to crank out this chapter in a couple of hours, and while i think its a bit rushed and things kind of get jumbled and messy toward the end of it, i wanted to post this as a bigger chapter because I think my biggest problem with this fic so far is that I was feeling like it wasn’t going anywhere, or at the very least wasn’t going anywhere interesting fast enough. I usually post chapters that are anywhere from like 1000 to 2500 words in length so that i can upload more frequently, and that usually works out really well with my other stories that have one central theme to them, but this story is a bit different in that it has a lot of different moving parts to it, lots of different perspectives, lots of different people doing lots of different things, and if i stuck to my normal way of writing I’d be here for the next year working on this one fic, so i decided to challenge myself to write as much as physically possible in this chapter, and get myself to the point where the plot finally beings to more forward a bit more. Idk if this chapter is any good, but i did my absolute best with it and i hope its really interesting and fun to read at the very least. Idk if ill continue with bigger chapters like this moving forward (this chapter is like 5000+ words) but I’m definitely happy that i was able to get over this hump and get a new chapter out for you guys, and more importantly, FINALLY INTRODUCE ROUGE AND A COUPLE OF HER AWESOME CREW!!! Of course you haven’t been able to see how awesome rouge and her crew are yet because a) i only referred to her as golden spade in this chapter for narrative purposes and b) Roger has just lost both of his children and is literally about 2 seconds away from tearing the whole universe apart to try and find them So please don’t let an overpowered, angry Papa Roger disuade you from thinking that Rouge and her crew are totally badass and awesome because they absolutely are its just that nothing is more powerful than an angry father looking for his boys. Also if youre wondering why I went so heavy on the Good Dad Roger content in this chapter it’s because I just read the latest chapter of Stereden’s fic and I cried over how shitty her version of the Roger pirates are and my only coping mechanism is to fill my own AU with endless amount of fluff and the Rogers loving Shanks and Buggy with all their hearts because who in their right mind wouldnt love these two little rascals, Stereden why must you cause me such pain? Anyways I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you think down in the comments below and I hope to see you all soon for chapter 4 where there will be a shift in perspective? Whose perspective you ask? Hell if i know! Thanks again, love you all, bye!!! <3


	4. Caught Red Handed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. Enjoy!

“...ey…”

“...ey ki…”

“...ome on, please wake u…”

Upon hearing an unfamiliar voice calling out to him and the feeling of someone gently jostling his shoulder, Shanks groans, finally conscious enough to notice the deep and aching soreness that permeates throughout his body. As he opens his eyes, Shanks takes a moment to blink away the blurriness that clouds his vision and allow his eyes to adjust to the damp cold darkness of… wherever the hell he currently was.

“Oh thank goodness. You’re still alive” the unfamiliar voice that woke Shanks from his prone state says, causing Shanks to jump slightly in surprise and fear, using what little mobility he has to jerk himself as far away from the stranger as the small dark room will allow.

“Stay away” Shanks yells, trying his best to sound intimidating, though the shake of his voice betrays how afraid he is.

The stranger, a woman Shanks finally notices, puts her hands out in front of her, as though she were trying to steady Shanks and prevent him from falling over, despite the distance now between them. “No, no, it’s ok. I’m not going to hurt you” the woman says, her voice calm and soft but laced with concern. 

From his position backed against a wall, Shanks takes a moment to examine the woman carefully, taking in her appearance as he tries to quickly determine whether or not she can be trusted. Despite the lack of direct light in, what he can only assume to be, the dungeon of an enemy ship, Shanks can still tell that the woman he’s currently sharing a cell with is small, not as small as him of course but definitely petit, almost frail even, for someone who looks to be in her early to mid 20s. The only other notable features that Shanks can make out about the woman are her fair skin that's covered in freckles, green eyes, the color much darker and less beautiful and vibrant than Buggy’s but still green nonetheless, and a head of messy curly auburn hair that’s flying out in every possible direction despite most of it being pulled back into a bun.

Overall, this woman is probably one of the least threatening people Shanks has ever seen in his entire life, which is likely the reason why, despite the voice in the back of his head telling him otherwise, Shanks allows himself to relax slightly, not yet moving closer to the strange woman, but no longer squashing himself against the wall to get away from her either.

The woman breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes back into a sitting state, seemingly pleased that Shanks has calmed down slightly.

“Ok, that’s better” the woman says aloud, a small smile spreading across her lips as she leans toward Shanks slightly. “What’s your name?”

Shanks remains silent for a moment, contemplating whether it would be dangerous to trust this woman and give her his name. Rayleigh had always told him and Buggy that if they were ever abducted by enemies and taken in for questioning that they should always play dumb and pretend like they didn’t know anything, or give fake answers that seemed true enough for people to believe, that way they didn’t give away vital information that could potentially put the Roger’s at a disadvantage, but also wouldn’t result in them being physically harmed like they would if they outright refused to answer their kidnapper’s questions. 

Now to be fair, this wasn’t the exact situation that Rayleigh had described, after all, judging by the cell, this woman was likely just as much of a prisoner as Shanks was. On top of that, the lady didn’t  **seem** to be very threatening, like he knew most enemy pirates were, or like she had any ulterior motives, like most enemy pirates did, so perhaps she wasn’t actually his enemy. Shanks knows that trusting someone he just met, especially in a situation like this, is very risky, and could potentially backfire on him if he’s not careful, but with everything considered, this woman is likely the only person he can trust right now, so, for better or worse, Shanks decides that the best thing to do for right now is to play along and hope he doesn’t regret opening his big mouth.

“Sh-shanks” the redhead responds quietly, after a long moment of silence.

The woman perks up upon hearing Shanks finally answer. “Shanks, huh? What a unique name” she giggles in amusement.

“Whatever” Shanks pouts, turning away from the giggling woman as his cheeks start to redden at her teasing.

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Shanks. My name is Maggie” the woman, Maggie, says, sticking her hand out to the young boy with a wide smile on her face.

Shanks eyes the hand curiously for a moment before extending his own and shaking his hand with hers. “Nice to meet you too… I guess” Shanks replies, a small smile of his own beginning to spread across his face as he let's go.

“Ok, great, now that that’s out of the way, um… do you know where you are right now or how you got here?” Maggie asks curiously.

“N-not really. I remember a little bit, but its all kind of fuzzy” Shanks admits after a moment of contemplation. 

A look of concern crosses Maggie’s face. “Ok, um... then try thinking back about it for a second. What’s the last thing you remember happening before you lost consciousness and woke up here?” 

“I remember…” Shanks pauses, thinking hard for a moment to try and recall memories from the previous day. “I remember I was searching an island with my dad and the rest of our crew. We were looking for some people, this pirate lady that my dad wanted to fight because the newspaper said that she was super strong. It was really hot outside so we were gonna go back to the ship until night time, but then Buggy told me he heard some singing in the distance, and he seemed really nervous about it for some reason. Then my dad picked us up and started running away because there were some people nearby, and I think they wanted to try and take me and Buggy away. We were almost back to the ship but then an enemy fired a cannon at us and we fell into the water. The last thing I remember before waking up here is feeling like I was spinning underwater, I couldn’t breath and I couldn’t tell which way was up or down or left or right, but before I knew it I was being pulled up from the water but everything goes dark after that…”

“I see” Maggie says, looking a bit confused about Shanks’ recount of the events. “You said you came here with your dad, right? Is he a marine or something?”

“Ew, no, the marines suck. My dad’s a pirate captain” Shanks proclaims loudly, puffing his chest out proudly.

“A pirate captain?” Maggie asks, looking shocked and put off by Shanks’ statement. 

“Yup. The strongest pirate captain around too” Shanks continues, smiling widely, oblivious to the incredibly concerned and almost horrified expression on Maggie’s face.

“What on earth is someone as young as you doing on a pirate ship?”

“Dad found me on an island in South Blue when I was 3 and decided to bring me with him after he found me digging around for food in a trash can. He adopted me after that and I’ve been with him ever since” Shanks explains easily, as though digging around for food in a trash can, and subsequently being adopted by a pirate, wasn’t an incredibly tragic and horrible thing to happen to a 3 year old.

“He… found you? And just… took you?” Maggie questions cautiously.

“Yup.” Shanks nods.

”What about your family?” Maggie asks, her brow furrowing in confusion.

”As far as he could tell I didn’t really have a family taking care of me. He did mention a lady he talked to the day he adopted me that he thought might have been my mom, but I don’t remember her at all, except that she had red hair like me and would sometimes sing me songs before I went to bed. But that doesn’t really matter anymore because Dad, Buggy, and the rest of the crew are my family now, and I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to try and find me so that I can go home to Oro!” Shanks states with a gleeful nod.

“Right… uh…”

“What about you, Maggie?” Shanks asks curiously, cutting the smaller woman off before she could say whatever it was she was about to say regarding Shanks’ upbringing and questionable choice in caretakers.

“Well, uh, it’s funny you should ask that, because I’m actually a pirate too” Maggie replies, rubbing at the back of her head.

Shanks tilts his head in confusion as he looks at Maggie. “You? You’re a pirate? But you look so weak.” 

Maggie stiffens in embarrassment at the slightly rude comment “Well… um… I guess that’s not… entirely untrue…”

“My dad says that a crew is only as strong as its weakest link, so does that mean your crew is super weak like you?” Shanks asks bluntly.

“Not at all” Maggie blurts out immediately, surprising Shanks with her sudden vigor. “The crew I’m a part of is full of ridiculously strong people. They’re all monsters compared to me.”

“Really?” Shanks questions, his eyes shining with childish curiosity. 

Maggie shakes her head in affirmation. “Truthfully, I’m not really much of a fighter, as you can probably tell by the sorry state I’m currently in, but everyone else is so incredibly strong and capable that it makes up for the fact that I’m about as useful in a fight as a cooked noodle.”

“I see” Shanks says, “but if you don’t fight, then what do you do?”

“I’m the ship’s cook” Maggie replies simply, a small smile on her face. “Before my captain asked me to join her crew, they were living off of canned beans and precooked rice for who knows how long. I was a bit of a lost soul when they found me and had nothing to lose, so despite my reservations about joining a crew of pirates, I decided to take a chance and join them as their much needed cook. I’m fortunate enough to be one of the lucky people who doesn’t regret her decision to board a pirate ship and set off into the wild unknown of the Grand Line.”

“Wow, that sounds so cool” Shanks breaths, though his excitement is dampened slightly when a thought crosses his mind. “Wait a second. You said “she”, so that means your captain’s a girl?”

Maggie blinks in slight confusion. “Yes, that’s correct. Why?”

“Well, it's just that my dad was looking for a lady pirate captain because he wanted to fight her, and it's kind of weird that this pirate captain we’re looking for is a lady… and your pirate captain is a lady… and…” Shanks pauses for a moment as his brain struggles to piece together the bits of information he’s been given, a shocked expression spreading across his face as he finally puts 2 and 2 together.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH” the boy screams as he jumps up and points an accusatory finger at Maggie, who jumps 3 feet into the air in response to Shanks’ sudden outburst. “YOUR A MEMBER OF THAT SPADE LADY’S CREW, AREN’T YOU?”

“Shhhhhhhh, keep your voice down before they-”

“I’VE GOT A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU AND YOUR DUMB FRIENDS FOR FIRING A CANNON AT US. ALL WE WANTED WAS A FAIR AND HONEST FIGHT AND NOT ONLY DID YOU GUYS MAKE IT LOOK LIKE WE’D COME ALL THE WAY OUT HERE FOR NOTHING BUT THEN YOU GO AND OPEN FIRE ON US EVEN THOUGH WE DIDN’T DO AN-mph” Shanks is suddenly cut off by Maggie lunging at the smaller boy, clamping her hand over his mouth to silence him just as a light suddenly shines from down the dungeon hall.

“Oi, I don’ know which one of yous is makin’ all that racket, but if yous don’ knock it off righ’ now, Imma come down there and give yous a beatin’ yous won’ soon forget” a gruff voice yells down the hall before promptly slamming the door he came through shut, plunging Shanks and Maggie back into darkness.

It isn't until a moment later that Maggie finally breathes a sigh of relief, loosening her grip on Shanks and allowing the boy to step away from her, though the scowl on his face from before persists, clearly no longer interested in making nice now that he knew the crew she belonged to was entirely the reason why he was stuck here.

“I’m very sorry if my nakama acted out or did something rash to you and your crew” Maggie apologizes meekly. “They’re all a bit hotheaded and will sometimes do things without thinking too much about it, especially if they think the situation is dire enough to call for such quick decision making.”

Shanks eyes Maggie suspiciously, but his expression softens when he realizes that she’s being sincere. “It’s ok I guess. I’m not happy about all this, and I’m definitely gonna give those two idiots who fired at us a piece of my mind once I get out of here, but I guess I can’t really blame you for what happened since you were already stuck down here.”

Maggie smiles goodnaturedly, her posture relaxing slightly now that Shanks has accepted her apology. A moment of silence passes between the two before shanks speaks up again.

“Hey Maggie, how did you end up down here in the first place?” Shanks asks curiously, wondering how on earth this tiny mousy woman ended up down here despite claiming that she didn’t really get directly involved in many fights.

Shanks frowns when Maggie sighs dejectedly at the boy’s question, suddenly looking very tired and defeated, and it's in this moment that Shanks finally notices a variety of cuts as well as darkened and splotchy bruises scattered across the small woman’s skin, especially around her ankle, indicating that she’s likely had a less than pleasant experience while stuck down here in the dungeons.

“Well,” Maggie begins, looking back up at Shanks, “I guess the best way to answer that question would be to start from the beginning of this whole mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so it’s been a hot minute since ive updated this fic and its honestly for the same reasons as last time so i wont go too much into detail, but I’m hoping that this time around ill be able to get over my writer’s block and be able to post the next chapter, buggy’s perspective, a bit sooner. I can’t promise anything right now other than that ill do my best, but I hope you enjoy this chapter and are looking forward to the next chapter as much as I am. Please let me know what you think of this chapter down in the comments below, I do read and respond to every comment and love love LOVE reading what you guys have to say about my fics so don’t feel shy my comments are always open and I’m always happy to talk, leave some kudos if you’d like as well, thanks so much for reading this chapter and i look forward to seeing you all very soon for chapter 5. Bye!!!! <3


	5. Out of the Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. Enjoy!

The heat of sparks against his skin. The ear shattering ring of an explosion. The sudden ice cold grip of the sea that freezes Buggy’s entire body when he, Roger, and Shanks finally hit the water after jumping off the cliff to avoid an incoming attack. Everything happening around Buggy goes from peaceful to pure chaos in less than a second, his whole world suddenly flipped completely upside down as he’s ripped away from Roger’s grip, his devil fruit, although quite useful above land, stripping the small boy of any coordination and movement he would have otherwise had.

Panic fills Buggy’s entire body as the ocean pulls and yanks him around like a small pebble, powerless to stop himself or the currents from taking him wherever the almighty flow sees fit. Brief moments of respite are found only in the second or so intervals when the current hurls him upward, close enough to the surface that his terrified and uncoordinated flailing manages to propel his head above water, allowing Buggy to take in whatever amount of air his lungs can get ahold of, before being pulled right back down beneath the waves.

This endless cycle of torture continues for what feels like an eternity, but could have only lasted a few minutes for all he knew, until finally, unable to withstand the lack of oxygen or the freezing temperatures any longer, Buggy finally succumbs to the growing darkness that clouds his vision, his limp and unconscious body now completely prone to the sea as it engulfs him, like it does to all who dare to enter its watery grip.

Some time later, Buggy awakes to the sound of birds chirping somewhere off in the distance and a bright light shining directly in his eyes.

Groaning in annoyance, Buggy cracks his eye open, using his hand to shield his sensitive eyes to the ray of sunlight that had rudely awoken him from his sleep. His annoyance is quickly replaced with confusion however, when he finally sits up and notices that he was not, in fact, in the medbay back on the Oro Jackson, like he had unconsciously assumed, but rather a small room outfitted with a few beds and a med table, in what appeared to be a wooden cabin of some kind. 

“What the hell…” Buggy says aloud, to no one in particular, fear and panic beginning to fill him as he continues to observe the room he was in, not knowing where the hell he was or how he got here, but knowing for certain that this wasn’t the Oro Jackson and that meant that he was NOT safe here. Regardless of the events that brought him here, Buggy instantly knew that he had to get out of here as fast as possible, before any other misfortunate events could have the chance to befall him.

Tossing the blanket to the side, Buggy carefully and quietly gets up from the bed, his body bruised and sore but thankfully not injured enough to prevent him from walking, before tiptoeing his way to the large wooden door. Reaching up to wrap his hand around the knob, Buggy cracks the door open slightly, trying to see outside the room as much as possible without making it too obvious that the door had been opened. Not hearing anyone close by, Buggy slips outside the small crack in the door, slowly closing it shut behind him to avoid raising suspicion for anyone who happened to pass by, before picking a direction and quickly tiptoeing his way down the hall, hopefully in the direction of an exit of some kind.

Although he had yet to run into any of his captors since leaving the medbay, Buggy could practically hear his heart beating in his ear, thumping against his ribs so loudly that the blue haired boy feared the drumming sound would give him away. Thankfully, the muffled voices of his captors that could be heard from somewhere in the building didn’t seem any wiser to Buggy’s movements, though this did nothing to ease his pounding pulse. 

After what felt like an eternity of wandering aimlessly around, Buggy’s eyes widen as he peeks around the corner, seeing a large door that had been left propped open with a rock. The exit. He’d finally found it, after all this painstaking searching. Now the only thing left to do was sneak away unnoticed and somehow make his way back to the Oro before nightfall, lest there be even more enemies to worry about lurking around in the darkness.

Pushing himself off the wall Buggy runs to the door, a smile on his face as his freedom draws closer and closer with each step.

“Hey, you” a voice calls out from somewhere, causing Buggy to stop dead in his tracks, his heart sinking to the floor as a sickening feeling of dread spreads throughout his body. Turning in the direction of where he heard the voice, Buggy sees an older woman with long brown hair and fair skin, dressed in work pants and a dark green button-up top, a revolver hanging from her right hip, standing at the end of the hallway directly opposite the door Buggy was just about to head out of.

Before the woman can manage to say anything else, a shriek of terror rips its way from the back of Buggy’s throat as the blue haired boy turns on his heel and hightails it out the front door as fast as his little legs will carry him. Chaos breaks out inside the building as the woman calls out to the rest of her nakama, alerting them to Buggy’s escape, before bolting after him herself in an attempt to stop him from getting away.

The sounds of yelling and shouting and leather boots thumping against dirt from somewhere behind him fuel Buggy’s fearful panic as he passes more buildings and people, made up of men, women, and children Buggy unconsciously notes as he blazes past them, who all look at him with confusion for a brief moment before the yelling from the brown haired woman has the adults lunging and grabbing for the small boy. Thankfully, due to his small size, Buggy is able to evade the meager attempts to snatch him up, and any body parts that are somehow gotten hold of are quickly detached from the rest of his body, the sight of a dismembered hand or leg being enough to frighten the adults enough to cause them to release the appendage, which swiftly returns to its master and rejoins the rest of Buggy’s body as though it had never left to begin with.

‘I swear by the stars above and Davy Jones down below if I make it out of this godforsaken hell hole alive I will never tease Shanks for being the reason I have this devil fruit power ever again’ Buggy thinks to himself as he continues sprinting down the dirt path toward the forest, not even caring what direction this path takes him so long as its as far away as physically possible from wherever and whoever he was being held captive by.

Despite his lack of knowledge of the forest terrain compared to his captors, the sudden lack of open land and the slight cover provided by the surrounding trees seems to be working in Buggy’s favor, making it harder for his pursuers to keep up with him as he ducks under low hanging branches and dodges the bushes and tree roots that litter the ground. His lungs burn and ache but the blue haired boy doesn't dare stop or slow down, knowing that even the slightest mistake could result in his capture.

A snapping twig from his left is the only thing that alerts Buggy before a large body hurls itself out from a nearby bush, barely missing wrapping its large arms around Buggy’s midsection as the boy dives out of the way. Unfortunately for him however, in his haste to avoid the previous attack, Buggy misjudged the landing of his dive, causing his body to slam painfully against a large rock, slowing his momentum slightly, but not enough to prevent him from tumbling down a large steep hill, dirt, rocks, and vines all digging into and slicing against his tender young flesh.

Buggy finally comes to a stop at the bottom of the hill, his body trembling and his eyes beginning to fill with tears from the searing pain that permeates throughout his body. 

“Hey, I found him, he’s down here” a woman’s voice calls from the top of the hill, and instantly Buggy knows he’s been found. Panic and fear beginning to fill his chest once more, Buggy stumbles to his feet as quickly as possible, ignoring the pain in his arm and ribs as he limps away as quickly as possible.

“Hey kid, stop” another voice calls out, prompting Buggy to run even faster, knowing that if he stopped he’d never see his family again, alive that is.

“Kid please, just stop for a second” someone else calls, the brown haired woman Buggy remembers from the sound of her voice, as she and a few other women slide down the steep hill after him.

“Like hell I will” Buggy yells back, but it doesn't do him much good in the end, and as the women slowly but surely draw closer and closer, until, like a predator after prey, they finally get him.

Tears begin to fall down Buggy’s cheeks as the women surround him, unable to keep the rising terror from overwhelming him as the futility of his escape finally dawns on him, all his methods of fleeing having been blocked off. Clenching his teeth and wiping at the tears on his face, Buggy drops into a defensive stance, unsure of what he plans to do considering he’s outnumbered 9 to 1, but also not willing to go out without some sort of defiance. Very well then, if Buggy wasn’t going to be able to escape like he originally planned, then he’d have to rely on his unique talent of being a royal pain in the ass to get him out of this mess.

“S-stay away from me” Buggy yells, bearing his teeth and puffing out his chest to make himself look bigger. 

The women all cast glances between one another but disregard Buggy’s demand, beginning to slowly inch closer to the boy. 

“H-hey! Back off! I mean it” Buggy yells again, but his words are once again ignored, the women drawing closer and closer with each passing second. 

Buggy glances nervously around him, looking for something that he could possibly use to his advantage, anything that could possibly help him escape, but the women have formed a solid barrier around him, preventing any and all means of escape short of flying away, which Buggy unfortunately could not do, and they had all wisely hidden their weapons away, making sneakily stealing a knife or a gun to defend himself with nearly impossible as well. 

In his moment of panicked searching, Buggy misses the glance shared between a brown haired woman and another of her Nakama, looking back just in time for the brown haired woman to lunge at Buggy, this time successfully grabbing the boy and hefting him into her arms before snapping a pair of handcuffs around his wrist, which Buggy is horrified to realize, upon feeling the majority of his strength leave his body, are made of seastone.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” Buggy screams as the brown haired woman hefts him over her shoulder and begins to drag him back toward the village he had just escaped from.

Tears once again begin to fall from Buggy’s cheeks as the boy kicks, beats, and struggles against the woman’s grip, though his attempts to get her to release him are unsuccessful.

“STOP IT! LET ME GO! LET GO OF ME YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” Buggy cries out as he beats his fist against the woman’s back and squirms as much as his weakened body will allow, forcing the woman to stop to get a better grip on him.

“Oh for crying out loud, will you stop squirming you little twit, we’re not gonna hurt you” the woman growls, tightening her grip on the small boy as his screaming and crying only increases.

“DAD! RAYLEIGH! SCOPPER! ANYBODY! HELP ME!” the boy wails loudly, unable to stop the sobs or pleas for his family from ripping their way from his throat.

Another woman, a tall 3-eyed one with black hair tied into a braid wearing black work pants and a blue t-shirt with a dark grey jacket, steps forward. “Kiddo, it’s ok, we aren’t going to hurt you” she says softly, placing her hands on Buggy in an attempt to calm him from his frantic state. She jerks back in shock when an ungodly scream tears from Buggy when her hands touch his shoulder and his writhing only increases in its ferocity.

“DAD! DAD PLEASE! I’M RIGHT HERE! DAD PLEASE HELP ME! DAAAAAAAAAAD!” Several of the other women take confused and slightly fearful steps back as they take in the sight before them, the brunette now struggling to keep her grip on Buggy as he practically convulses in her arms, his cries of terror growing louder and more erratic, with each passing second, echoing throughout the forest at a terrifying volume.

“Sue, for crying out loud, do something before the kid hurts himself” the 3-eyed woman orders the brunette woman, her face etched with uncertainty and concern.

“ME? What the fuck else do you want me to do? My hands are already full just trying to hold on to the slippery brat, what the hell makes you think I can do anything else?” The brown haired woman, Sue replies, gritting her teeth as she lifts the screaming boy back up and attempts to wrap her arms around his legs to prevent him from thrashing around so much.

“LET ME GO, LET ME GO, LET ME GO, PLEASE LET ME GOOOO!”

“Well whatever it is you're doing, it's scaring the shit out of the kid. Knock it off before he goes into shock” a shorter woman with wild, curly black hair and white circular glasses, dressed in a loose fitting black bodysuit says, her concerned expression mirroring the one on the 3-eyed woman.

“Well alrighty then Liv, if you have a better idea of how I should deal with this, then by all means  **show me** ” Sue growls, using her weight to throw Buggy out of her arms, and directly onto her nakama, who crashes unceremoniously to the ground along with the still screaming Buggy, unprepared to have the small boy dumped onto her. 

Using the moment of confusion to his advantage, Buggy immediately jumps up and begins running, though he isn’t able to get far before he’s snatched up once again, this time by a much larger and stronger woman, whose arms wrap firmly around Buggy’s body, forcing his knees to his chest and his arms to his sides, preventing him from moving more than an inch in her iron grip. With a solid hold on the boy, the woman begins walking, once again taking Buggy further and further away from freedom, and right back in the direction of the prison he had awoken in earlier.

“NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOO PLEASE! PLEASE I DON’T WANNA GO BACK! I WANNA GO HOME! I WANT MY DAD!” Buggy begs and cries and pleads with the women who, despite the concerned and sympathetic looks on their faces, pay no feed to the boy’s sobs, merely continuing on despite them.

By the time the group of women return to the village, Buggy has finally allowed himself to succumb to the growing fear and hopelessness that he had been attempting to push back earlier, when escaping and finding a way home actually seemed possible, now allowing his tears and sobs of anguish to fully escape, going completely limp as his body and spirit were both far too weak for him to even attempt to continue fighting against the incredibly grip encasing him. 

“ **DAD** !” Buggy cries out one last time, hoping and praying that his father would hear his cry for help and suddenly burst out from behind one of the nearby houses, having heard his son’s desperate calls for help and come to bring him back to Oro and the rest of the Roger pirates, where he belonged. But alas, even after several minutes of desperately calling out for his father, the raven haired man did not heed his call. Dirty, bruised, bloody, and sobbing uncontrollably in the arms of his captor, Buggy was now painfully aware that he was really and truly alone in all this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this chapter was low key kind of all over the place despite my best efforts to reel it in and make something cohesive out of it, and idk if I’m 100% happy with how it turned out but at this point I’m too lazy to try and fix it so here you go. As I’m sure you can probably guess this is Buggy’s perspective of the events that occurred following the huge explosion that separated him and shanks from roger and all that good shit. Buggy finally gets to meet the golden spade pirates but unfortunately their introduction is less than pleasant and tbh i think buggy might be a bit traumatized from it, not that he’s unfamiliar with the concept of trauma or anything. Poor baby boy just wants his dad. Anyways let me know what you thought of this chapter in the comments, make sure to leave kudos, and i hope to see you all very soon for chapter 6. Bye!!!


	6. A “Proper” Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Chapter. Enjoy!

***Tik***

9 hours. 37 minutes. 13 seconds.

***Tok***

9 hours. 37 minutes. 14 seconds.

***Tik***

9 hours. 37 minutes. 15 seconds.

***Tok***

9 hours. 37 minutes. 16 seconds.

Tik Tok goes the clock on Roger’s wall, counting down every single agonizing second it’s been since the raven haired man has seen hide or hair of either of his two beloved sons, each one driving him closer and closer to an impending state of chaos that seeks to drive him completely and utterly insane.

Now, to be fair, Roger will be the first person to admit that his natural state of existence brings with it some amount of chaos and insanity by default, but this, these feelings and emotions that gather and wretch painfully in Roger’s chest with every Tik Tok of the clock on his wall, signaling every second his precious sons remain in danger or dead, is a kind of insanity that Roger wouldn’t wish upon even his worst enemy. 

Despite his best efforts to direct his attention toward more productive things he could be doing to try and get them back, Roger has instead spent the last 9 hours, 37 minutes, and 17 seconds aimlessly wandering around his bedroom, unable to bring himself to sleep, fighting his body’s insatiable desire to walk down the hall, crack open the door to Shanks and Buggy’s room, and find both boys sleeping peacefully in their bunks like nothing had happened, despite knowing logically that the only thing he’ll find is an empty room. The swirling of fear, panic, worry, and guilt that are slowly eating away at Roger from the inside out as he paced back and forth in his room are nothing compared to the overwhelmingly aching emptiness that filled Roger’s heart the first time he unconsciously wandered into the boy’s room, practically feeling the lack of presence of the two shining lights that normally lit up the small room, as well as the rest of the Oro Jackson and everyone on board her.

If there were ever a time in Roger’s life when he felt like breaking down into tears, that moment definitely would have been it. 

The rest of the crew clearly felt much the same way as their captain, and even the newer men who had only joined within the last year or so looked lost and confused without having to constantly trip over or scold the pair of energetic duo. The ones who were taking this the worst however were of course the members of the Roger pirates who had been around when they first found Shanks and Buggy, like Rayleigh, Crocus, Scopper, Wilson, Xavier, and all the others, their guilt and urgency in somehow getting the boys back alive and well second only to Roger himself, and perhaps Oro, who seems to be sailing rather quickly despite the lack of strong wind along her back.

Regardless of how the Roger pirates were feeling in their current situation, one thing was certain, they would do whatever it took to get Shanks and Buggy back, even if it meant sailing the whole world forward and back and killing anyone who dared stand in their way.

A sudden knock at his door pulls Roger from his nervous pacing, and he looks up just in time to see Rayleigh opening his door, not even surprised that Roger was already up and dressed.

“Hey” his first mate greets.

“Hey yourself” Roger greets back, though it falls flat compared to his usually energetic and jubilant morning greetings.

“Did you sleep last night” Rayleigh asks, already knowing the answer, but looking for some way to start a conversation.

“No” Roger replies simply, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Did you?”

“I tried to for a bit, but I woke up a couple of hours ago and spent the whole time tossing and turning, so I gave up trying to go back to sleep and got up and got dressed instead.”

“Ya, sounds about how my morning has gone so far” Roger replies, though to no one in particular.

A long moment of silence passes between the two friends as they both struggle to find something to say, unsure of what to talk about this early in the morning given that Shanks and Buggy aren’t around to have done something for the first mate to complain about. It’s a cruel and ironic feat that even without being here, Shanks and Buggy are still managing to wake the whole crew up at the asscrack of dawn with little care for how late, or drunk, the rest of them had gone to bed. Though Roger is certain that even Rayleigh, who detests being woken up before 9, would much prefer having his two annoying nephews crawling all over him in an attempt to get him up right about now, rather than standing awkwardly in Roger’s doorway as they both try not to think too much about the possibility of never seeing the boys ever again. 

Now wasn’t the time for pessimism, it was the time for action, and fate was always on the side of those who acted first.

“Any news from the Golden Spades?” Roger asks, exiting his room and heading toward the dining hall where Wilson was no doubt having an existential crisis over the distinct lack of tiny mouths he would have to feed this morning.

“No, not yet” Rayleigh replies, closing Rogers door and following behind his captain. “And we haven’t gotten anything out of our ‘guests’ either.”

Roger groans in frustration at the news, hoping that there would at least be something for them to go with by this time around. Oh well, unfortunately there was little Roger could do about that until he managed to have a proper conversation with the Golden Spade herself.

Entering the dining hall, Roger is surprised to see that quite a few people are already awake and eating quietly at their usual spots, an anomaly considering that breakfast was easily one of the loudest and most chaotic times of the day, so to see everyone be so quiet and reserved was just another testament to how much not having Shanks and Buggy around was really throwing everyone off their groove. 

Taking a seat at his normal spot at the bar, Roger accepts the plate of food that Wilson hands him, not even bothering to complain about the vastly larger quantity of vegetables on his plate than normal, knowing better than to get into an argument with the man who controlled their food supply, especially given the mood. The Roger pirates remain in a state of uncomfortable silence throughout the duration of breakfast, keeping mostly to themselves and eating much slower and less enthusiastically than normal, as though they were eating less because they were hungry and more because they knew they needed something in their bodies to fuel them for the rest of the day. Given that he was feeling much the same way, Roger didn’t blame them.

It was about when Roger was halfway finished with his overly plant-based meal that the transponder snail that Roger swiped from the two ‘guests’ they had downstairs began to rang, its sputtering signaling that there was someone on the other line who wished to speak to him. The rest of the crew all stare at the buzzing snail as though it contained all the answers the world had to offer, but Roger doesn’t even bother looking up from his plate as he reaches over and plucks the receiver from the snail’s back and brings it to his lips.

“Hello” Roger answers bluntly before taking a drink from his glass.

“ _Hello_ ” the feminine voice on the other line replies. “ _Is this the man I spoke with yesterday?_ ”

“The one and only” Roger says sarcastically, placing his glass back down on the bar with a dull thud. “Is this the woman whose crew is so incompetent that they think firing canons at small children and their father is an acceptable way to greet someone?”

“ _Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but regardless, I fail to see how that’s of any importance right now. Do I have the pleasure of putting a name to the voice of the man who's beaten and kidnapped my crew mates, or am I going to have to settle for putting ‘asshole’ on the label?_ ” Golden Spade jokes, though the bite to her tone is less than joking.

“I don’t know Golden Spade, am I going to have the pleasure of driving my sword through the heart of the woman whose crew I kidnapped are responsible for my **missing children** , or am I going to have to settle for a gunshot to the forehead from afar, because with the way you’re talking right now that’s about the only thing you’ll be getting from me” Roger bites back harshly, making it blatantly clear that he was in no mood to play her stupid little game.

A moment of tense silence passes, during which Roger swears he hears the woman in the other line swallow thickly, though he doesn’t say anything about it.

“ _Fair enough_ ” she says after another moment, her voice quieter than it was a moment ago. 

‘Good’ Roger thinks to himself, ‘maybe now she’ll listen to something other than the sound of her own voice.’

“The name’s Roger” the raven haired man grumbles. “Now that we’ve finally gotten all of that sorted out, I’m assuming you called me for a reason, or were you just bored and looking for something to do, Golden Spade?”

The woman in question huffs in annoyance at Roger’s condescending question. “ _It’s Rouge, thank you very much._ ”

Roger rolls his eyes. “Well alrighty then, “Rouge”, are you gonna tell me why you called or can I get back to my goddamn breakfast before my food gets cold?” Roger snips, growing impatient with this goddamn woman with every passing second.

“ _Ok, you know what you stupid son of a bitch, I’ll have you know that I called specifically to update you on the whereabouts of the little blue haired brat you were telling me about yesterday, but if you’re going to be a condescending piece of shit then I’ll just keep this information to myself and you can go fuck yourself._ ”

“You found Buggy?” Roger asks, his eyes going wide and his chest filling with hope as he stares at the transponder snail the woman’s voice emanated from, completely ignoring the taunts and insults the woman had just thrown at him. The rest of the crew currently present in the dining hall breaks out into hushed murmuring, the anticipation rising as they all wait eagerly to hear of the fate of their precious little Buggy.

Rouge pauses for a moment before responding, seemingly surprised by the sudden change in Roger’s tone and attitude once Buggy was brought up. “ _Given the info you provided the last time we spoke, we figured that the current must have pulled him into the island via one of the river access points located along the side of the island. The channels connecting the river to the ocean are too small for any ship to pass through but plenty big enough for a little boy to get swept in through. It took us all night but we were able to find a little boy who matched your exact description washed up along the riverside._ ”

“Was he alive? Please tell me he was alive” Roger asks, his body going tense with his need to know whether his son was ok. 

“ _He wasn’t breathing when we found him._ ”

Roger’s whole world comes to an abrupt halt upon hearing those words, his heart stops beating, his lungs stop taking in air, and whatever hope had managed to trickle its way up, that at least one of his boys would be ok, was suddenly smashed and destroyed in an instant, and was quickly replaced with that same aching emptiness the raven haired man had felt earlier while standing in Shanks and Buggy’s room earlier that day, the knowledge that Buggy wouldn’t be coming back ever only amplifies the already agonizing emotion 10-fold.

Roger didn’t even need to turn around and look at the rest of the crew to know that their faces probably mirrored his own, their expressions a mixture of disbelief, confusion, denial, and agonizing acceptance at the news that one of their boys was no longer among them. They had been too late. They couldn’t save him. And because of their failures, Buggy was now dead, and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

“So… s-so you mean he’s…” Roger manages to choke out, clenching his fist and pushing the anger, sorrow, and loss he felt back down his throat, refusing to allow his grief to overtake him when he still had one more child to get back, still had to remain strong so that what happened to Buggy wouldn’t happen to Shanks. It was one thing for Roger to have to grieve one child after all this was over, he wasn’t going to let it be two.

“ _We did everything we possibly could to resuscitate him and for a while it seemed like we had gotten to him too late but then all of a sudden-_ ” the woman on the other line falls silent before finishing her statement, her attention captured by another person who had just entered the room and was currently speaking to Rouge in a low, hushed voice. In any other situation Roger would have questioned what the hell was going on, but given the current whirlwind of emotions currently flying around inside him, the raven haired man merely remained silent and waited for the other pirate captain to return and finish the gruesome tale of his youngest son’s final moments.

A slight shuffling can be heard before Rouge finally returns to the transponder snail, her voice sounding confused and slightly panicked. “Um, ok, I’m afraid something rather urgent has just come up and I’m going to have to disconnect for right now, but I’ll call you back once I get the chance and I’ll explain everything that’s happened but for right now I need you to just-”

“ **_DAD_ ** _!_ ” A distant shriek from somewhere off in the distance cuts Rouge off before she can finish her sentence. More hushed voices fill the other line as Roger freezes in his tracks for the second time in the last 5 minutes, his mind a complete jumble of thoughts and emotions as it tries to process the eerily familiar sound he just heard.

“Rouge” Roger says, slowly turning his head to regard the transponder snail on the counter next to him, his voice even and calm despite the absolute chaos whirling around inside him.

“ _...yes?_ ” The woman on the other line responds, her voice cautious and perhaps even the slight bit nervous as the hushed voices on the other line quiet down upon hearing Roger’s voice, all of them clearly picking up on the dangerous energy emanating from the man on the other line.

“What the hell was that?” The raven haired man asks slowly, not wanting to get his hopes up only for them to crash even harder than they had a moment ago when it turned out to not be what he thought it was, but unable to shake it away completely.

“ _I-I don’t know… I think it might have been-_ ” she trails off as more voices begin speaking hurriedly to their superior, likely filling her in on what the actual fuck was going on.

Roger waits for a response with bated breath, quickly losing his patience with the woman on the other line, but thankfully the other voices go quiet, allowing Rouge to return to the transponder snail after a few short moments.

“ _Uuuuum… ok, so long story short we found your brat along the river, we thought he was dead because he wasn’t breathing so we rushed him back to our current base of operations and after a shit ton of work from our doctor we were able to get him breathing again so we left him in the medbay thinking it would be a while before he woke up but then this morning I was told by someone who went to check on him that the kid was gone and that a bunch of my crew went chasing after him a little while ago because he escaped out the front door and headed into the woods and while I’m not 100% certain I’m assuming that the noise you just heard was probably my crew coming back with your kid, and I’m also gonna take a stab in the dark and assume he’s less than happy with this current arrangement._ ”

“YOU MEAN BUGGY’S ALIVE!” Roger yells into the receiver of the transponder snail, a chorus of cheers and yells from the other Roger pirates immediately breaking behind him in celebration of the fact that buggy wasn’t, in fact, dead in a ditch like they’d all assumed just moments ago.

“ _Ok, I get you're excited but there’s no need to yell. And of course he’s alive, I never said he was dead or anything like that_ ” Rouge says, slightly confused.

“Are you fucking kidding me, you could not have told that story any worse even if you tried, I’ve literally been sitting here for the past five minutes thinking my kid was dead when in reality you were just taking your sweet fucking time in getting to the part that told me he was still alive. I nearly had a fucking heart attack, you dumb bitch” Roger groans, rubbing at his eyes with his left hand as he slumps back down into his seat, relief flooding his whole body and leaving the raven haired man feeling slightly lightheaded from the emotional whiplash he just experienced.

“ _Hey, fuck you, I’m a smart bitch_ ” Rouge bites back, though her tone doesnt hold the same animosity it did at the beginning of their call, though Roger has neither the energy nor the desire to figure out whether that really meant anything.

Another shuffle of noise on the other line is quickly followed by another high pitched scream, much closer by the sound of it, that Roger would know from absolutely anywhere, given that it's the same scream that occasionally woke him and the rest of the crew up in the middle of the night whenever the boy in question had a particularly gruesome nightmare.

“Buggy” Roger breathes, immediately recognizing the cries of distress Rouge and her crew were attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to calm.

“Hey, what the hell is going on over there? Why the hell is he screaming bloody murder like that?” Rayleigh asks harshly, getting up from his seat to stand behind Roger, moving the receiver closer so he can speak directly into it, his face contorting with anger and worry at the increasing volume of Buggy’s screams and sobs playing through the snail.

“ _Like I said, the kid managed to escape from the medbay this morning and ran off into the forest, so I had to send some of my crew after him so that he didn’t get himself killed, but I guess he started freaking out when they finally caught up to him and he’s been like this the whole way back. Any tips on getting him to fucking stop before he hurts himself... or any more of my crew?_ ” Rouge explains hurriedly.

“And you didn’t think to try and talk to him first?” Roger snips in response.

“ _I already told you, the kid bolted like there was no tomorrow the second he woke up, meaning we didn’t even get a chance to talk to him before he took off. And on top of all that, he’s been about as cooperative as a feral cat since we found him. He’s bitten like 8 people in the last 10 minutes_ ” Rouge replies defensively. “ _Besides, he’s just a kid, he wouldn’t have understood what was going on regardless._ ”

“He’s 9, not a fucking moron, he absolutely would have understood what was going on if you’d talked to him. For crying out loud, you know what, fuck this, put Buggy on the phone” Roger demands suddenly, growing increasingly tired of dealing with this stubborn woman and her incompetence at handling his child.

“ _What?_ ” Rouge responds dumbly, sounding shocked by Roger’s demand.

“You heard me, put Buggy on the phone and let me talk to him, I’ll have this settled in 5 minutes tops.”

“ _Uh, not to be disrespectful or anything, but we haven’t gotten so much as a coherent sentence out of that kid since we brought him back, what makes you think you’re gonna be able to-_ ”

“GIVE. ME. MY. BOY.” Roger growls into the receiver, practically feeling everyone on the other side of the line flinch in response to his words.

“ _Ok, ok, calm down, no need to yell_ ” Rouge says in defeat before calling over to one of her crew and instructing them to bring Buggy into the room where the transponder snail was located.

Roger’s heart practically cracks in half upon hearing Buggy’s desperate cries and pleas for help grow louder as he’s brought to the snail, his intense desire to wrap his arms around his boy and hold him close until he’s better growing more and more intense with every painful cry of ‘let me go’ and I want my dad’. 

“ _Hey kid_ ” Rouge says, her voice warm but carrying a hint of awkwardness to it, though whether it was from her lack of experience with children in general, or just her lack of experience in dealing with an enemy captain’s child, Roger couldn’t tell. “ _Look here, I’ve got someone on the line who really wants to talk to you. Why don’t you take this and say hello to them?_ ”

“ _I wanna go home. I want my dad_ ” Buggy sobs weakly, his voice hoarse and shaky from all the screaming he’s done, but a good enough indication to Roger and the rest of the crew that Buggy was still very much alive and, mostly, well.

“Well if you wanted me, then all you had to do was ask” Roger says softly, chuckling lightly to himself as he addresses his son’s request.

“ _...Dad?_ ” Buggy questions shakily, the boy’s agonizing sobs slowly fade to choked hiccups and sniffles upon hearing his father’s voice.

“Hi Blue Bug” he greets using one of the infinitely many nicknames that Buggy has received over the years, smiling fondly, his chest swelling with relief and happiness that, after over 10 hours of heartwrenching worry and fear, at least one of his boys was ok. 

“ _Dad, come get me_ ” Buggy demands, though his tone of voice makes it sound more like a desperate plea. “ _I don’t like it here, this place is filled with weirdos, and I want to go home to Oro._ ”

“ _Hey…_ ” a voice snips indignantly in the background, clearly having not taken too kindly to having been referred to as a weirdo by a small child.

Roger ignores all that. “I know Bug, and I promise that we’re trying as hard as we can to get you out of there. But for right now you’re gonna have to sit tight and wait there with the spades until we get Shanks back. After that, we’ll-”

“ _YOU MEAN SHANKS IS MISSING?_ ” 

‘Shit, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to start with’ Roger thinks to himself as Buggy breaks out into an endless stream of questions regarding the whereabouts of his red headed counterpart, that Roger unfortunately didn’t have the answers to. 

“Buggy, listen to me” Rayleigh, thankfully, cuts in, “we’re doing everything we can to get Shanks back and we won’t stop until we do, but unfortunately that means you’re going to have to stay put until we can come get you.”

“ _WHAT?_ ” Buggy yells, his voice cracking slightly from the overexertion. 

“Trust me kiddo, if I had things my way I’d already have you home, but if we detour to come get you there’s a chance we’ll lose track of Shanks, and since we don’t know who these assholes are or what they want it might mean losing Shanks for good, and I don’t think that’s what any of us want, you especially.”

“ _....no_ ” Buggy replies quietly after a long moment of silence. Roger can tell that Buggy isn’t thrilled by this arrangement, and to be perfectly honest, neither is he, but with Buggy now, mostly, safe and sound with the Spade pirates, Roger had no choice but to trust that they would honor their deal and keep Buggy safe until they got Shanks back. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all they had going for them at the moment. 

“Hey” Roger says softly after a moment of silence.

“ _Ya_ ” the blue haired boy answers back.

“We’re gonna do everything we can to bring Shanks home safe and sound. You know that right?”

“ _Ya._ ”

“And right after that we’re going to come back for you.”

“ _Uh-huh._ ”

“And once both of you are back home where you belong we’re going to pack up our shit, get the absolute hell out of here, and go pick a fight with your Uncle Eddy instead of these crack-heads, sound good?”

Buggy giggles lightly at that. “ _Ya, that sounds good_ ,” he says, his voice much lighter and hopeful than it had been just a few moments ago.

Roger smiles. “I love you.”

“ _I love you too, Dad._ ”

Had it not been for the audible coo of a feminine voice heard from somewhere in the background on the other line, Roger might have actually forgotten that the spade pirates were also present and could apparently hear everything that had just been said. The tender moment between father and son is quickly ruined by the rest of the Roger pirates however, who all decided that, they too, would now like to speak to Buggy, and proceeded to bombard Roger, practically climbing and stepping all over him in a mad rush to yank the transponder snail from their captain’s hand.

“Hey give me that.”

“Piss off, I’m gonna talk to him.”

“As if, you’ll only make him cry again, dumbass.”

“Like you could do any better, dipshit.”

“Will you assholes knock it off, none of this is helping the poor boy.”

“Ah lay off it, Buggy’s a strong kid, he can handle anything if he puts his mind to it.”

“Damn straight he can, but that doesn’t mean we can’t back him up when he needs it. He’s a Roger pirate just like the rest of us, and when you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.”

“Hell ya! Just hang in there a little longer kiddo.”

“We’ll be coming back for you soon, Baby Blue.”

“WILL YOU ASSHOLES KNOCK IT OFF. XAVIER GET THE HELL OFF OF ME.” Roger shouts, grabbing the navigator currently sitting on top of his head by the scruff of the collar and throwing him back against the crowd of men, knocking several of them to the floor in the process.

Rouge sighs in frustration, or perhaps exhaustion, after a moment of listening to the Rogers quarrel amongst themselves. “ _So are we good?_ ”

“You kept up your end of the deal. You found my boy and are keeping him safe until we can come back for him” Roger says, fixing his collar and hair while he speaks. “So ya, I’d say we’re good now. Or at the very least better than we were 20 minutes ago.”

“ _And what about the nakama of mine you have?_ ” Rouge asks, her voice even but a clear hint of expectation behind it. 

“We treated their wounds and locked them up below deck. We have someone keeping an eye on them and we’ve been sending them food and water regularly.”

“ _Ok, that’s nice and all_ ,” Rouge begins, “ _but I don’t suppose it would be possible for you to let them go, would it? Unless you think it would be appropriate for me to put your son in a cage, as well?_ ”

“ _Try it and I’ll bite you next_ ” Buggy growls menacingly, and Roger has to resist the urge to laugh when he hears several women tense and step away from him, though to be fair, as someone who has been on the receiving end of the razor blades that Buggy calls teeth, and more importantly, what he tends to do with them when he feels threatened, Roger can’t blame them all too much for their caution.

“We’ll bring you down and let you explain the situation to them since I doubt they’ll listen to anything I have to say. After that we’ll let them out and give them a room to stay in until all this is over. Is that an agreeable arrangement?” Roger asks.

The woman on the other line sighs in relief. “ _Yes, that’s fine, thank you_ ” she says, the genuine appreciation in her voice catches Roger off guard.

“Well, we are technically allies for the time being, so it wouldn’t really behoove me to be an asshole when we both have something at stake in this” Roger says hurriedly, unsure of why he feels the need to explain himself all of a sudden. “At least, I’m assuming you have something at stake, since you and your crew seem to have gone an awful lot out of your way to hide yourselves and those townsfolk from the dirtbags that took my other kid.”

A long moment of silence passes, so long in fact that for a split second Roger wonders if the connection was lost.

“ _Ya… I guess you could say that_ ” Rouge says suddenly, her voice quiet and downtrodden, tired, like she hadn’t slept properly in days because the weight of what was on her mind was too much to allow her to, even though her body yearned for even the smallest ounce of rest. As someone who spent the entirety of the previous night endlessly pacing back and forth in his room, his mind a flurry of nerves, anxieties, fears, and what if’s regarding the safety and whereabouts of his missing children, Roger was all too familiar with that feeling.

Before Roger could offer a sympathetic ear to listen to the woman’s woes, a meager but heartfelt gesture of good faith and perhaps even companionship and understanding from a fellow ally(?) captain, a flurry of sound and motion popped up suddenly from somewhere in the background on the other line.

“ _Oh what now?_ ” Rouge asks, her voice laced with exasperation as murmured voices exchange words that Roger can’t make out, the distant commotion growing louder and louder.

“Are you under attack or something?” Roger asks, casting a confused glance at Rayleigh, who merely shrugs in response, having no better of an idea what the hell is going on than he did.

“ _I don’t think so, but I think there’s someone trying to get into the village?_ ”

“ _ROUGE, ROUGE_ ” someone suddenly shouts in the distance, “ _IT’S DADAN! SHE’S MANAGED TO ESCAPE SOMEHOW!_ ”

“ _What? You mean she’s back?_ ” Rouge exclaims, her voice a great deal more hopeful than it was a moment ago.

‘Escape?’ Roger questions internally, wondering what could be meant by that. Did the Golden Spades also have missing nakama?

“ _Alright look, this has been fun and all, but unfortunately I have matters to take care of so we’re going to have to cut this short. We’ll look after your kid and discuss the crew of mine that you have on the next call, if you lay so much as another finger on either of them I’ll slit the kid’s throat in his sleep._ ”

“Wait, you’re gonna do what now- HEY WAIT A SECOND!” Roger shouts, but his demand falls on deaf ears as the transponder snail clicks off, the repeating tone coming out of the snail indicating that the call has been ended. 

With a sign of frustration and a shake of his head Roger places the receiver back in its place and turns his attention to his now stone cold breakfast.

“So… what’s the plan now, Captain?” Crocus asks, turning to Roger.

“Same as it was earlier” Roger replies. “Find the shitheads who took Shanks, beat them all to bloody pulps, grab Shanks, run back to the Island and grab Buggy, dropping Golden Spade’s crew off at the same time, and get the absolute fuck out of here and go pester Eddie for a bit.”

There’s a round of applause from the rest of the crew in response to that idea.

“For right now we just need to keep surveying the 10 mile area surrounding the island until we catch sight of them again and can start pursuing” Roger continues, shoving a spoonful of eggs into his mouth.

“Do you really think they’ll come back so soon though? We did bash them up pretty badly when we chased them off the first time” Rayleigh asks, a concerned frown etched across his face.

“They’ll be back alright” Roger says confidently, a strong feeling in his gut agreeing with him. “They weren’t accounting for us being there when they first arrived, but Golden Spade and her crew are their targets, and if this crew is really as strong and dangerous as our dear friend Rouge makes them out to be, then there’s no way they’ll take a loss like that lying down.”

The feeling in his gut remains as Roger finished his statement, but something in the back of his head keeps nagging at him, telling him that something about this whole situation isn’t quite right, or doesn’t make sense. Perhaps it's because they still don’t know the whole story behind everything but perhaps there's something else going on, something that even Golden Spade herself doesn’t know about.

Roger hopes that whatever the hell it is, it won’t interfere with him getting his boys back safe and sound. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, don’t you just love it when you try to write but your brain just goes “...nah” cuz that’s what my brain has been doing for the past month now. I suppose one good thing is that this chapter is super long so it makes up for the fact that its been almost 2 months since i last posted. I know i say this every time but I’m really hoping to get back to posting more frequently. Idk if I’m gonna actually be able to do it, especially now that I’m back in school and working and doing all this other adulty shit, but I’m gonna do my best and hopefully it wont take me the rest of 2020 to finish writing this fic. As for the chapter itself, have I ever mentioned how much I love writing Good Dad Roger, because I fucking lock writing Good Dad Roger so fucking much its literally one of my favorite things about this AU, second only to Competent Buggy but even then its pretty close. Roger just wants his baby boys back and he doesn’t care what he has to do in order to achieve that, so anyone who gets in his way had better watch out! And one last thing, there’s a familiar character I mentioned in this chapter that I’m sure many of you weren’t expecting to see, and I’m very excited to show you what role she’ll play in this AU in the next few chapters, because its pretty awesome if you ask me ;-). Anyways thank you all so much for reading, if you liked this chapter, leave a comment down below with your thoughts, or just a bunch of screaming so that I know you liked it, and some kudos would also be nice as well. I love you all, stay safe, stay healthy, and I will see you all soon for chapter 7. Bye!!! <3


	7. Ronan the Reaper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. Enjoy!

“Shanks, do you know the story behind how we came to the New World?” Maggies asks curiously, settling as comfortably as she possibly could into the hard wood of the cell they were currently sitting in, trying not to agitate her ankle too much. 

The red haired boy in question thinks for a moment, trying to remember what that newspaper that had sparked this whole excursion had said.

“Something about how you guys showed up and made this island your base and kicked out all the pirates who kept looting from the villagers?” Shanks says hesitantly, unsure how much of this is actually true, and how much is coming straight out of his ass. 

His answer seems to satisfy Maggie, who smiles slightly and breathes a sigh of relief, probably over, thankfully, no longer having to explain absolutely everything in order for Shanks to understand what’s going on. “Good, so you have at least a general idea of how we got here. Do you know anything about the people who captured us?”

“No, at least I don’t think so” Shanks says with a shake of his head.

“Alright, that’s fine, I guess you’re a little young to know who this monster of a man is, especially considering how many years it’s been since he’s been active” Maggie says, causing Shanks to send her a confused expression.

“We found Kenaji, the island we were just at, a little over 6 months ago after we had just entered the New World” Maggie begins. “We had kind of blasted our way through the first half of the Grand Line at a breakneck pace and since the New World is still mostly uncharted seas, we were interested in maybe settling down on an abandoned island and setting up a base of some kind, which we did when we stumbled across Kenaji and, more importantly, the villagers who lived on it. For as long as any of the villagers could remember, the island has been a constant target for pirate invasions, and due to its small size and lack of valuable exports resulting in a lack of funds to pay taxes with, the World Government doesn't even bother showing up in response to distress calls anymore.”

“Sounds about right,” Shanks mutters under his breath, all too familiar with the World Government’s true nature despite his young age.

“Well anyways, pirates stopped coming to the island for a while after we set up a base there, and for a while things started looking up for the villagers, and in turn us too, since they had people who could keep them safe, and we finally had a safe place in the world to call our own. For a while it seemed like things were perfect, and we were all more than happy with the way things were, but alas, all good things came to an end, and unfortunately the end of our good times came in the form of Jengus Ronan.”

Ronan? The bounty hunter?” Shanks asks, perking up at the mention of a name he actually recognizes.

“You know him?” Maggie asks, clearly surprised by Shanks knowledge of the man in question.

The redhead nods his head. “My dad has told me stories about him. He’s a famous bounty hunter known for taking out some of the most powerful pirate captains in all of history, but unlike most bounty hunters, his targets weren’t just other pirates. Ronan was the kind of bounty hunter who would take out marines and government officials too, so long as he was given a good price for it. Dad says our crews used to fight all the time back when he was still a rookie and his bounty was finally starting to take off, and apparently he was super strong too, but my dad always beat him in the end.”

“I see,” Maggie says. “And do you know what happened to Ronan?”

“Nope,” Shanks says with a shake of his head, “nobody does, he and his entire crew disappeared without a trace like 15 years ago and no one has seen or heard from them since. His sudden disappearance is one of the biggest mysteries of the century.”

“Yes, that’s right! Wow, you really do know a lot, huh” Maggie says, causing Shanks to beam with pride. “

“I really like stories, so whenever Dad or Rayleigh or Scopper or anyone else on the crew has one that sounds interesting I always like to listen and learn more about them, especially if the stories are about actual stuff that happened” Shanks explains excitedly.

Maggie giggles. “Well aren’t you the little historian. But yes, you’re absolutely right, Ronan was a powerful bounty hunter back in the day and his disappearance did cause quite a disturbance throughout the world, even among the most powerful and elite individuals. His army of loyal followers and seemingly endless network of connections aided him a great deal in the assassination of thousands of prominent world figures on both sides of the justice system. “Ronan the Reaper” is what they called him for much of his career. “Enemy to all and friend to only those whose blades have tasted his blood”.”

“ “Whose blades have tasted his blood”? You mean his friends were people who stabbed him?” Shanks asks, his face contorted in confusion.

“Um, well, I think it might just be a saying” Maggie explains quickly, “but there was a rumor that went around for a while that Ronan’s highest executives were chosen for their positions because when Ronan fought them for the first time, they were the only men capable of actually landing a hit on him, which in the days of Ronan’s prime was said to be impossible. Whether or not that’s actually true, I have no idea, but I think that’s where the saying came from at least.”

“Wow that’s crazy. How did you know all of that Maggie?” Shanks asks, a wide smile on his face.

The young woman in question smiles and casts her gaze down to the floor. “Well, I guess you could say I’m somewhat of a story enthusiast myself, especially when it comes to real life events. I’m nowhere near as knowledgeable about timelines and dates as some of the other members of my crew but if something catches my eye I like to do lots of research on it just like you do, and I'm always curious about what regular people have to say about historical events, not just scholars. You’d be surprised how much insight you can get on a particular event based on how normal people view and remember it. That’s really all there is to it though, it's no grand secret or anything.”

“That’s so cool, you must be really smart if you know this much about other stories too.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I appreciate the compliment” Maggie says, scratching at the back of her head as a rosy blush spreads across her cheeks.

“But I still don’t get it,” Shanks says suddenly, causing Maggie to pause in her flattery. “What does any of this with Ronan have to do with us being captured?” Shanks questions.

“Well, a lot actually, especially considering that the ship we’re on belongs to Ronan’s fleet.”

“WHAT? YOU MEAN WE’VE BEEN CAPTURED BY RONAN?”

“Shhhhhhhh” Maggie hurriedly quiets the young boy, casting a nervous glance back in the direction of the hallway door, breathing a sigh of relief when it doesn’t open.

“But why, and how do you know?” Shanks asks, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“Well, in my case, I’m pretty confident in saying that I’m a bargaining chip that Ronan will try to use to get what he wants out of my Captain, whatever the hell that might be. You on the other hand, I’m honestly not sure. I suppose if Ronan was aware of your relationship with your Dad, then he wouldn’t be above using you for much the same purpose” Maggie explains. “As for how I know that it's actually Ronan, well, let’s just say that Captain and Ronan had a less than pleasant conversation a few weeks ago when he first came to the island on behalf of the World Government. His ships and his jolly rogers are different now than they were before, but there’s not a single doubt that the man leading them is Ronan himself.”

“Wow,” Shanks says, unsure of what to do with all the information he’s been given until something occurs to him. “Wait? Did you say “on behalf of the World Government”?”

Maggie looks at him curiously before nodding her head. “Yes, that’s right. Why?”

“Cuz that doesn’t make any sense,” Shanks says suddenly, causing Maggie to jump back in surprise.

“W-What do you mean?” Maggie asks.

“Back before his disappearance, Ronan was the most powerful bounty hunter in the whole world, to the point where no one, not even the Marines or the strongest pirates in the world wanted to mess with him. The World Government even admitted to not knowing what happened to him after a couple of years of him being gone ‘cuz people kept asking questions about why the most notorious bounty hunter who had been all over the papers for decades had suddenly dropped off the face of the planet, but they were too afraid to lie and say they had captured him if it turned out that he was still alive and came back just to shove their publicity stunt right back up their asses. Even though he was known for going up against the strongest armies and pirate crews of the time and winning without breaking a sweat, in the decades long career Ronan had, he never once allied himself with another group, pirate or marine, so it doesn't make any sense why he would go into retirement for 15 years only to come out of it and align himself with the marines of all people and be traveling around the New World. Dad said he hated the marines more than anybody and that the New World didn’t have any important people for him to kill so he never bothered with it. I just don’t get it” Shanks rambles endlessly.

Maggie remains silent for a moment before answering, “Well… I’m not going to lie, Shanks I honestly have no idea what Ronan is doing out here in the New World or the particular deal he’s struck with the Marines. It definitely doesn’t make sense based on his past behaviors but we also have to keep in mind that this isn’t the Ronan the world knew 15 years ago, he’s different, and not all of those differences work in his favor.”

“What do you mean?” Shanks asks curiously.

“Well, for starters, he’s a lot older now than he was before. If memory serves me correctly I believe he was 68 when he retired 15 years ago, and while his prime years might have lasted a lot longer than most people’s would, there’s no denying that these last 15 years have taken a lot out of him” Maggie explains quickly.

“You mean he’s weaker than he was before” Shanks says, lighting up when he catches Maggie’s hidden meaning.

The young woman nods her head. “Yup, and from what I saw so are a lot of his men.”

“But there were lots of young guys with them too. What about them? Wouldn’t they make up for what the older crew members couldn't do anymore?” Shanks points out.

“Maybe, but I think you’re also forgetting the difference between being strong because you're young, and being strong because you're experienced” Maggie counters.

Shanks raises a questioning eyebrow at that. “And that is?”

Maggie smiles. “Well, young people are stronger than older people because their bodies are in much better condition and are able to heal themselves at a much faster rate than older people, so not only are they able to move better but injuries aren’t as devastating to them either. However physical strength is only one aspect of what makes a person strong, do you know what another one is?”

Shanks pauses to think for a moment. “The mind?”

“Exactly, the mind is another place where people can be strong, and is typically where older people tend to overcome younger folks like you. Older generations have been around longer, have experienced more things, and generally know a lot more than younger ones, which leads to them being wiser and knowing the ins and outs of a particular environment that young people wouldn’t, thus giving them the advantage in certain situations.”

“Ok, so what does that mean?” Shanks asks.

“It means that Ronan and his crew are playing at two distinct disadvantages that they didn’t have to deal with back when they were in their primes, the first one being the original members’ aging and much weaker bodies, and the second one being the slew of new member who, despite their youth and physical strength, don’t have the same knowledge, experience, and mentality that Ronan and the other original members have. They lack the same fínese and are more prone to making mistakes caused by rash decisions that the members who worked under Ronan in their prime would never have made” Maggie explains. “Ronan’s decision to return after all these years is still a mystery to me, but I’m fairly confident his decision to align with the Marines and do their dirty work for them was a desperate attempt to make up for the fact that he and his executives aren’t in the same shape they once were, as well as the fact that his new members are still relatively incompetent when it comes to being professional bounty hunters.”

A long moment of silence passes between the two prisoners before Shanks speaks up.

“So what now?”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asks, confused.

“Well, we don’t know exactly what Ronan wants, but we know what he’s trying to do, and we also know that him and his crew aren’t nearly as strong as they were before, so what are we doing sitting around doing nothing? Let’s get out of here.”

“Get out?” Maggie says, her confusion growing at the ludicrousness of Shanks’ suggestion. 

“Ya, we can escape once everyone’s gone to sleep and sneak out the way they brought us in” Shanks says optimistically, standing up and putting his arms out.

“Ok, but even if we do manage to escape from this cell, which, I don’t know if you’ve realized, we are currently chained to, where would we go from here? We don’t know if there might be men patrolling the ship to run into, or where their lookouts are posted, and most importantly of all, where land is. I get what you’re trying to say and I agree that we need to find a way out of here at some point, but at the same time I think it would be incredibly dangerous for us to try that when we don’t even know if we have somewhere safe to escape to” Maggie counters.

Shanks deflates at the counter argument, his arms falling back to his sides. “Oh” the redhead says glumly, plopping back down on the floor with a frown. 

Maggie casts the boy a sympathetic look before reaching forward to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey, I said we can’t risk escaping right now, but I never said we shouldn’t do it did I?”

“No” Shanks replies.

“Right. So even though there isn’t much we can do at the moment, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start planning for when we  **can** make our escape. It's going to be dangerous and risky, and we’ll probably only get one shot so we’ll have to do it right the first time, but if we really are going to try our hand at escaping then we need to make sure we have a plan set for when the time comes and that we don’t waste the opportunity when it arrives. That sound good to you?”

“Ya!” Shanks says enthusiastically, his bright and cheery mood quickly returning.

Maggie laughs, finding the young boy’s optimism and boisterous energy to be contagious. Leaning forward and lowering their voices, Maggie and Shanks begin discussing the plans of their potential escape, providing as much information as they can about the layout of the ship from when they saw on their way down to the gallows and highlighting potential shortcuts or hiding places that might come in handy later on.

“Do you think we’ll actually be able to pull this off with your injury?” Shanks asks, eyeing the bruised and swollen skin on Maggie’s leg nervously.

“Don’t you worry about me, I’ve been through a lot worse than just an injured ankle, and my crew mate who was locked up with me managed to escape with even worse injuries than this. It won’t be easy, but it’ll definitely be worth it when we finally get out of here” Maggie says reassuringly.

“Do you think your crew mate who escaped managed to get back to your base ok?”

“Oh ya, she made it back, there’s not a doubt in my mind about that” Maggie says confidently. “Dadan is one of the toughest members of our crew, and she’s not afraid to use her strength or her strategic mind in order to get what she wants either. I’ll bet you any amount of money that she’s back at base helping Rouge and the others come up with an incredible plan on how to beat Ronan and rescue us, I’m absolutely certain of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not even going to comment on how long it’s been since I last updated this fic but in true Foilfreak fashion despite not having touched this fic in over 2 months, the day I finally decide to hop on and work on it I end up blazing through the entire chapter in one sitting. If only i could do this on a more consistent basis, maybe I’d have gotten a couple more stories written over the course of this shitty year. Oh well, nothing I can really do about it now. Here’s chapter 8, where the big bad of this fic is finally revealed. There’s not really too much to say about this chapter since its mostly just a lot of talking about the villain and explaining his backstory and how he fits into this whole clusterfuck. Idk if i did a good job with this chapter honestly, its kind of just a lot of filler information to help me keep the consistent theme of the 3 changing perspectives and not all that much can happen when you’re just sitting in a cell waiting for your captors to do with you as they will, but i do feel like this chapter, at the very least, helps the audience build a picture of the villain in their mind and drives the plot forward, so I guess i can’t fault it too much for that. I’m hoping that this fic will be wrapped up and finished within the next few chapters, which will finally allow me to move onto another story, but depending on how things end up playing out and the direction the story takes, it could end up being a solid 6 to 8 more chapters before its finally done. Like i said i don’t really plan out these stories outside the general idea i have for it in my head so sometimes what i start out with and what i end up with are 2 very different things, but im optimistic that I might be able to finish this fic before the end of the year if I get back to writing it consistently (we’ll see if that actually happens but a girl can dream). If not, i wont worry about it but i am starting to get a little antsy and the list of stories i want to write for this au just keeps getting longer and longer so it would be nice to finally be able to move on and write something different for a change. I’ve got a lot of ideas and plans in store for this au and I can’t wait to share them all with you but before i can get to the stories that I REALLY want to write, I have to write the stories that help build the world and the society that drives a lot of what happens within this au. Its tedious and annoying at times but it’ll all be worth it when i can finally write my own Impel Down and Marineford fics, which ive been wanting to write for well over 2 years now. Tbh its probably going to be a looooooong while before ill finally be able to write those but hopefully by the time it finally does role around I’ll still have all of you lovely people around to read and enjoy it! Much like the rest of this au it will be VERY different from canon and a lot of other versions of those arcs written by the other amazing writers here on AO3 but it will be consistent with the themes and narratives ive already begun establishing so I think you’ll all still like it regardless, so I can’t wait to finally be able to write it!!!!! Anyways let me know what you think of this chapter in the comments below, and I hope to see you all soon(-ish) for chapter 9, where we get to all the good glorious fun that Buggy and Dadan are about to have together!!! Bye!!!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you thought of it down in the comments below, i love reading your comments and hearing all your thoughts and ideas so don’t be shy about leaving me a comment even if its only to scream at me. Anyways thanks so much for reading, I hope you all enjoyed, and I will see you all very soon for chapter 2 staring Rouge and the Golden Spade Pirates. Bye!!! <3


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